Perspectives

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  • Although generally perceived as an old-fashioned and unselective tool to build molecules, the photochemistry community is now re-discovering the power of UV light and is using key mechanistic information to develop new catalytic processes driven by visible light. This Perspective discusses the progress and impact of UV light in organic synthesis.

    • Giulio Goti
    • Kavyasree Manal
    • Luca Dell’Amico
    Perspective
  • The self-assembly of stimuli-responsive building blocks yields functional nano-systems and smart materials. This Perspective discusses how the integration of photoswitches into discrete coordination cages enables control over their assembly, guest binding and systems behaviour. Four scenarios are drawn to highlight the relationship between the photoswitching and dynamic assembly equilibria.

    • Elie Benchimol
    • Jacopo Tessarolo
    • Guido H. Clever
    Perspective
  • Bioresponsive hyperpolarized probes contain magnetic resonance signals that can be many orders of magnitude larger than those of common, thermally polarized probes. This Perspective discusses how bioresponsive hyperpolarized probes can be directly linked to biological events to give functional information, enabling the mapping of physiological processes and diseases in real time using magnetic resonance.

    • Goran Angelovski
    • Ben J. Tickner
    • Gaoji Wang
    Perspective
  • Hydrogen, which possesses the highest gravimetric energy density of any energy carrier, is attractive for both mobile and stationary power, but its low volumetric energy density poses major storage and transport challenges. This Perspective delineates potential use cases and defines the challenges facing the development of materials for efficient hydrogen storage.

    • Mark D. Allendorf
    • Vitalie Stavila
    • Tom Autrey
    Perspective
  • Droplet interface bilayers (DIBs) are a type of artificial bilayer that can act as cell membrane mimics. This Perspective surveys how DIBs can be used to mimic key cellular features (such as bilayer asymmetry) and processes (such as drug movement), and discusses challenges that need to be overcome to enable DIBs to reach their full potential as biomimetic model membranes.

    • Elanna B. Stephenson
    • Jaime L. Korner
    • Katherine S. Elvira
    Perspective
  • A substantial proportion of the data generated in chemistry research is captured non-digitally and reported in ways that non-accessible to both humans and computers. A variety of tools do exist to capture, analyse and publish data in an open, reusable, machine-actionable manner — they should be connected to create an open-science platform for chemistry.

    • Kevin Maik Jablonka
    • Luc Patiny
    • Berend Smit
    Perspective
  • DNA-encoded libraries can be applied in a diverse range of applications beyond simple binding assays. This Perspective covers the recent progress in using DNA-encoded chemical libraries to investigate complex biological targets and discusses their potential to identify structures that elicit function or possess other useful properties.

    • Yiran Huang
    • Yizhou Li
    • Xiaoyu Li
    Perspective
  • The complexity of proteins has inspired chemists to seek artificial mimetics of protein structure and function. Historically, most such work has focused on analogues of small, isolated segments; however, there is growing interest in mimicry of larger, intact tertiary folds. This Perspective surveys the emerging body of work on these agents, termed ‘proteomimetics’, discusses their construction and outlines some of the remaining challenges.

    • W. Seth Horne
    • Tom N. Grossmann
    Perspective
  • The structures of biologically active natural products have long served as inspiration in drug discovery. This Perspective outlines design principles and connectivity patterns for the de novo combination of natural product-derived fragments. The resulting ‘pseudo-natural products’ retain biological relevance yet exhibit structures and bioactivities not found in the natural products and their derivatives.

    • George Karageorgis
    • Daniel J. Foley
    • Herbert Waldmann
    Perspective
  • The shape complementarity between the active site of a catalyst and a substrate influences how effectively a reaction can be catalysed. Computational tools can be used to visualize the shape around the active centre of a range of catalysts and the application of such approaches to rationalize the behaviour of known catalysts — and to design new ones — is discussed.

    • Laura Falivene
    • Zhen Cao
    • Luigi Cavallo
    Perspective
  • Spins in molecules provide a simple platform with which to encode a quantum bit (qubit), the elementary unit of future quantum computers. This Perspective discusses how chemistry can contribute to designing robust spin systems based, in particular, on mononuclear lanthanoid complexes.

    • A. Gaita-Ariño
    • F. Luis
    • E. Coronado
    Perspective
  • Organic synthesis is a rate-limiting factor in drug discovery, so the pharmaceutical industry heavily relies on academic research. This Perspective highlights some of the most pressing challenges to be overcome from the industrial viewpoint — such as the development of reactions tolerating specific functionalities — and encourages stronger industry–academia relationships. Credit: Pills image: Profimedia.CZ a.s. / Alamy Stock Photo; Factory image: Diana Johanna Velasquez / Alamy Stock Vector; Graduate hat: Michael Burrell / Alamy Stock Photo; Conical flask: Astex.

    • David C. Blakemore
    • Luis Castro
    • Anthony Wood
    Perspective
  • Glucose-responsive insulin is a therapeutic that modulates its potency, concentration or dosing relative to a patient’s dynamic glucose concentration. This Perspective summarizes some of the recent accomplishments in this field as well as discussing new computational algorithms that may aid in the development of such therapeutics.

    • Naveed A. Bakh
    • Abel B. Cortinas
    • Michael S. Strano
    Perspective
  • Although metal–organic frameworks are often seen as rigid crystalline structures, there is growing evidence that large-scale flexibility, the presence of defects, and long-range disorder are not the exception, but rather the norm. Here we propose that these concepts are inescapably intertwined, and the interfaces between them offer prospects for enhancement of materials' functionalities.

    • Thomas D. Bennett
    • Anthony K. Cheetham
    • François-Xavier Coudert
    Perspective
  • No longer a theoretical dream, this Perspective describes effects of oriented external electric fields on rates and selectivity patterns of nonpolar reactions. Discussions of the Diels–Alder reaction, C–H and C=C bond activations and so on, underscore the potential usage of oriented electric fields as future smart catalysts, inhibitors and reagents in chemistry.

    • Sason Shaik
    • Debasish Mandal
    • Rajeev Ramanan
    Perspective
  • Antibody–drug conjugates have shown considerable promise for treating disease. However, in order to deliver their full potential, sophisticated site-specific conjugation technologies are needed. This Perspective provides an overview of the different methods used for the site-specific attachment of cytotoxic agents to antibodies.

    • Vijay Chudasama
    • Antoine Maruani
    • Stephen Caddick
    Perspective
  • A wide range of different aqueous chemistries for the site-selective modification of proteins have been described over the past decade. This Perspective discusses the scope and potential of chemical site-selective protein-modification methods in the context of their biological and therapeutic applications.

    • Nikolaus Krall
    • Filipa P. da Cruz
    • Gonçalo J. L. Bernardes
    Perspective
  • Synthetic vaccines offer one method to avoid the drawbacks associated with vaccines derived from whole organisms. This Perspective highlights the improvements and significant recent progress that has been achieved in developing well-defined synthetic vaccines using a variety of molecular antigens.

    • Lyn H. Jones
    Perspective
  • C–H functionalization of organic compounds is an ideal yet challenging approach to organic synthesis. This Perspective covers the most recent developments concerning the palladium-catalysed norbornene-mediated C–H functionalization of arenes, including applications of these methodologies in natural products synthesis. Challenges as well as opportunities for future studies are also presented.

    • Juntao Ye
    • Mark Lautens
    Perspective
  • One-pot tandem reactions are attractive for both waste and time reduction, but can also enable transformations otherwise unobtainable in single-step processes. This Perspective covers recent advances in orthogonal tandem catalysis, while introducing the concept of thermodynamically leveraging multiple catalytic systems together to perform challenging transformations.

    • Tracy L. Lohr
    • Tobin J. Marks
    Perspective