Nucleoside analogues are highly important in biochemistry, biology and medicine. Issue 14's outside front cover illustrates the work by Mahesh Lakshman and Josh Frank, at the City University of New York, US, to access modified guanosine nucleosides via novel O6-(benzotriazol-1-yl) derivatives. 

Orexin-B is a 28-residue neuropeptide associated with food craving and wakefulness. Yoshiaki Kiso and colleagues at Kyoto Pharmaceutical University, Japan, have efficiently synthesised it by solution phase racemisation-free O-acyl isopeptide segment condensation. Their work is illustrated on the inside front cover. 

The Emerging Area by Tobias Seiser and Nicolai Cramer, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, describes recent developments in the field of enantioselective activations of strained rings. The Perspective by Maurizio Botta, at the University of Siena, Italy, and colleagues outlines recent approaches for the synthesis of highly functionalised pyrimidines, which are present in many pharmacologically active compounds.