The glycopeptide antibiotics of the vancomycin 1 (Fig. 1) family are clinically important for the treatment of infections due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and other gram positive organisms.' After more than 35 years of clinical use, resistance to the drug has been recently detected2 and led to renewed interests in this field. Both structural modifications of antibiotics3 and the syntheses of designed non-natural produc ts4 have appeared addressing the ...