Getting started at a new institution and building a research programme can be an exciting period, but there is much to do in a short space of time. Shira Joudan reflects on her first month as an assistant professor, discussing the stresses of setting up a new lab and how it’s easier with a little help from your (new) friends.

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.

The ability to detect and quantify a given analyte at the molecular level is a long-lasting goal for analytical and bioanalytical chemistry. This Review highlights how single-molecule junctions (SMJs) have been used for analytical purposes, from the detection of isomers and reaction intermediates to the detection of proteins and nucleic acids. Different SMJ approaches are discussed, along with their advantages and limitations over bulk analytical techniques.

Governments worldwide are committing more funding for scientific research in the face of the ongoing pandemic and climate crises. However, the funding process must be restructured to remove the barriers arising from conscious and unconscious biases experienced by minoritized groups, including women, and particularly women of colour.

The covalent capture of a ligand by its target protein(s) is important for drug-target identification. Now an electrochemically active warhead—diazetidinone—can be leveraged in a chemoproteomics platform for electroaffinity labelling of a ligand’s target protein to afford target-ligand identification in live cells.

Fluorescent sensors that are responsive only in a specific subcellular location have remained elusive. Now, a chemogenetic sensing platform has been developed to sense glutathione in a user-defined organelle of interest. These tools enable quantitative studies of subcellular glutathione homeostasis using visible or near-infrared wavelengths.

Mutually orthogonal aminoacyl transfer RNA synthetase/transfer RNA pairs are required for genetically encoding non-canonical amino acids into proteins, as well as for the encoded cellular synthesis of polymers and macrocycles; however, the scalable discovery of such pairs is challenging. A quintuply orthogonal set of pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase/pyrrolysyl-tRNA pairs has now been generated through tRNA screening, engineering and directed evolution.

The metal-dependent, bifunctional isoprenyl diphosphate synthase PcIDS1 from the leaf beetle Phaedon cochleariae integrates substrate, product and metal-ion concentrations to tune its dynamic reactivity. Now structural and functional analyses reveal that this enzyme uses both catalytic centres to form geranyl pyrophosphate, while one domain is inactivated during farnesyl pyrophosphate production.

Genetic code expansion to incorporate non-α-amino acid monomers is limited by predictability of monomer reactivities in the context of the ribosome. Now the use of metadynamics simulations of pre-attack monomers in the ribosomal peptidyl transferase centre provides insight on whether an A-site monomer is likely to be reactive.

Although several transition-metal carbene complexes have been isolated and used for catalytic carbene transfer reactions, few metal difluorocarbene complexes have been reported. Now, the synthesis, characterization and reactivity of isolable copper(I) difluorocarbene complexes has been reported, which has enabled the development of a copper-catalysed difluorocarbene transfer reaction to access fluorinated compounds from simple chemical feedstocks.

Rajeev K. Dubey and Frank Würthner discuss the colourful character of perylene bisimides and the impact of aggregation on their functional properties.

Getting started at a new institution and building a research programme can be an exciting period, but there is much to do in a short space of time. Shira Joudan reflects on her first month as an assistant professor, discussing the stresses of setting up a new lab and how it’s easier with a little help from your (new) friends.

Organisms that glow are perhaps eerie. Vadim Viviani ponders on the luciferin–luciferase systems responsible for their intriguing bioluminescence.

Bifurcating the population as either verbal or visual thinkers is one of the simplest ways to classify intelligence. Bruce Gibb argues that visual thinking is key to chemistry, and that teaching and testing must focus on this type of thinking rather than traditional approaches promoting verbal thinking skills.

Jane Liao and Allie C. Obermeyer explore the discovery, modification and applications of green fluorescent protein, best known for its use as a tool to cast light on cellular processes.

Does the pursuit of scientific research based on a well-defined technological outcome hamper our ability to be creative? And does it limit opportunities to explore and develop fundamental areas of science that may ultimately lead to applications we hadn’t even thought of yet?