Review Articles

Biological assays are essential to pharmaceutical, agrochemical and cosmetics research. However, false readouts pose substantial challenges in screening small molecules. This Review explores the current methods for tackling assay interference, focusing on computational approaches and their integration with experimental methods.

Peptide stapling is a powerful technique used to lock peptide conformations and modulate peptide functions. This Review highlights the newest development in non-symmetric stapling of native peptides bearing natural amino acids, elucidating current advances, challenges and future opportunities.

The use of water for electrochemical hydrogenation and oxidation of organic species provides a sustainable route for synthesizing chemicals. The electrode types, general electrocatalyst selection principles and interface microenvironment control are elucidated, conducive to designing efficient electrocatalysts and reaction systems.

Organic-based triplet–triplet annihilation upconversion-mediated photochemical reactions utilize low-energy photons to obtain high-energy excited states leading to notable advancements in photoredox catalysis, photoactivation, 3D printing and immunotherapy. Classifications, design principles, challenges and possible solutions are discussed in this Review.

Anion recognition in competitive, aqueous media remains a critical challenge. Bulk and local solvation models for anion recognition events are herein explored, as well as targeted design approaches to retain strong anion binding in highly polar media.

Gold catalysts have attracted attention for their ability to activate hydrogen towards the hydrogenation of organic molecules. This Review explores strategies to enhance hydrogen–gold interactions to help design new efficient hydrogenation catalysts.

Electrochemical devices enable clean energy technologies such as hydrogen cells, batteries and solar fuels. Their design is hindered by incomplete information about the electrochemical interface during operation. Complementary optoelectronic probes offer a path to improved mechanistic insights into such interfaces.

The unique properties of selenium have been exploited in protein science. This Review highlights the recent applications of selenium chemistry in protein chemical synthesis, modification, folding, stabilization, the preparation of therapeutic proteins and more.

DNA has emerged as an attractive substrate for molecular information processing. This Review explores the application of DNA for computing and data storage, as well as the route to integrate these fields.

This Review introduces solar reforming as an emerging technology to produce sustainable fuels and chemicals from diverse waste feedstocks using sunlight. The chemistry and concept of solar reforming, suggestions of key metrics and proposed directions to realize solar-powered refineries for a future circular economy are discussed.

This Review highlights the strategies and challenges for targeting RNA with small molecules in medicinal chemistry. It emphasizes their potential as drugs and tools for understanding complex biological processes while encouraging chemists to contribute to this field for future advances.

Lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases are key enzymes in biomass processing and pathogenicity. They are, to our knowledge, the first known copper enzymes capable of utilizing H₂O₂ to hydroxylate C–H bonds. This Review draws a portrait of the catalytic paths at play and highlights outstanding questions in their reactivity.

The total biosynthesis and engineering of complex natural products is now routinely achieved in filamentous fungal host organisms. This technology offers substantial advantages over traditional total chemical synthesis for the production of both known and new specialized metabolites.

Molecular chameleons adapt their conformations to the properties of the environment so that polar functionalities are dynamically shielded or exposed. This allows chameleons to display both high cell permeability and aqueous solubility, and to bind to their drug targets.

Stochastic processes, including chemical reactions, can be driven away from thermodynamic equilibrium through ratchet mechanisms. This Review explores how biology uses ratchets to achieve remarkable synthetic control and discusses the recognition of, and early progress in, ratchet-like synthesis in artificial systems.

This Review provides guidelines for electrolyte and interphase design and discusses LiF-rich interphases with high interfacial energies, high mechanical strength and high ionic:electronic conductivity ratios, which enable the construction of a wide range of highly stable, safe and energy-dense battery systems with fast-charging capabilities.

The construction of macrocyclic or assembly-confined phosphorescence resonance energy transfer systems in the solid-state, aqueous solution and hydrogels is reviewed, and the applications of these systems are discussed.

Encoding recognition units into sequence-defined synthetic oligomers enables hybridization into unique assemblies in non-aqueous solutions. In this Review Article, we explore the chemistries that enable production of sequence-selective, duplex-forming oligomers through noncovalent or dynamic covalent bonds.

Although Grignard reagents containing the heavier alkaline-earth metals have been explored, they have always been an academic oddity. New synthetic routes such as ball milling and novel concepts for application may result in exploitation of the unique reactivity of calcium, strontium and barium reagents.

The history of halogen-containing solid electrolytes is presented, and the advantages of halogen-chemistry for solid electrolytes related to crystal structures, migration pathways and ion transport mechanisms are summarized. Finally, the main challenges and future developments of halogen-containing solid electrolytes are discussed.