The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1902 was given to Hermann Emil Fischer "in recognition of the extraordinary services he had rendered by his work on sugar and purine synthesis". This truly great chemist of all time named a group of bicyclic nitrogenous structures as purines, discovered the synthesis of glucose, fructose and mannose starting from glycerol, and further created the basis for glucoside-, amino acid-, and enzyme chemistry. To honour his discoveries, and to celebrate the 100 year since his Nobel Prize, we decided to write a short review article on the latest discoveries in the fields of purine/pyrimidine and sugar chemistry being performed on solid support. The review summarizes most of the material being published in the field since 1960, and ends by giving a picture of future directions for the field of drug discovery based on sugar and purine chemistry.