The growing field of glycomics is suffering from the lack of molecular tools for screening, imaging, purification and other procedures that are routine in studies involving peptides and oligonucleotides. Using an automated oligosaccharide synthesizer we developed some time ago, access to defined oligosaccharides has become very rapid. These synthetic molecules, as well as any isolated carbohydrate, can now be readily converted into a series of tools that aid biological and medical investigations. Described are: 1) Carbohydrate microarrays that require small quantities of material, are fully amenable to HTS technologies to screen carbohydrate interactions with proteins, DNA, and carbohydrates as well as cells; 2) Affinity colums, magnetic beads and carbohydrates containing biotin are used to isolate proteins interacting with oligosaccharides and glycoconjugates; 3) Carbohydrates equiped with fluorescent tags or quantum dots is used to image carbohydrates in vitro and in vivo. Application of these tools to biological problems of medical significance will be discussed. Particular emphasis will be placed on novel aminoglycoside antibiotics, HIV glycobiology and the development of fully synthetic carbohydrate vaccines.