Perspectives in 2012

Although the molecular formula gives valuable information on the properties of isolated molecules or conjugated polymers, it fails to accurately predict their collective behaviour in the solid state. This Perspective highlights the importance of organization across multiple length scales on the optical and electronic properties of organic semiconductors, and how device performances poorly reflect the capabilities of a given material.

This Perspective discusses contemporary ideas for enzymatic reactions that invoke a role for fast 'promoting' (or 'compressive') motions or vibrations that, in principle, can facilitate enzyme-catalysed reactions. With an emphasis on hydrogen-transfer reactions, experimental, theoretical and computational approaches that have lent evidence to this controversial hypothesis are discussed.

Enzyme-catalysed reactions can involve significant quantum tunnelling and show kinetic isotope effects with complex temperature dependences. In this Perspective, reaction dynamics and enzyme catalysis are linked to transition-state-theory frameworks. It is shown that a multi-state model using standard transition-state theory can account for complex experimental data without invoking a role for enzyme dynamics.