The point of this textbook is to provide a condensed introduction to this field. It is written from an organic chemist's viewpoint in order to encourage more 'pure' organic chenusts of any level to take a deep breath and leap over the gap between the 'biochemical' sciences and 'synthetic organic chemistry' by persuading them to consider biocatalytic methods as an equivalent tool when they are planning the synthesis of an important target molecule. At several academic institutions this book has served as a guide for updating a dusty organic chemistry curriculum into which biochemical methods had to be incorporated. The wide repertoire of classic synthetic methods has not changed but it has been significantly widened and enriched due to the appearance of biochemical methods.