The galectins are a family of proteins which contain shared sequence elements and show an affinity for galactosidases. One example is galectin-3 which has been implicated in many biological phenomena such as proinflammatory response, immunity, cancer, and injury of nerve cells. There is also evidence suggesting that an induced expression of galectin-3 promotes tumor growth and/or metastasis and that galectin-3 has a possible role in septic shock. Therefore, galectin inhibitors are of much interest as studies have shown D-galactose, lactose and n-acetyllactosamine to all inhibit galectins with varying binding affinities. Our research is focused on the use of organocobalt and organoiron mediated reactions for the synthesis of potential galectin inhibitors.