News & Views in 2010

The convergent total synthesis of the pore-forming polytheonamide B — a linear peptide natural product — pokes holes through perceived limitations in de novo peptide synthesis, and provides access to novel synthetic membrane channels.

Macrocyclic compounds can serve as hosts for smaller organic molecules, but precise control over the uptake and release of the guests remains challenging. Now, a host–guest system has been built that responds to the addition of metal ions, showing promise for drug-delivery applications.

A strong acid catalyst and a small change to one reactant have transformed a 37-year-old 'curiosity' into a useful chemical reaction that has great potential in organic synthesis.

Electrochemistry has so far been mostly centred around measuring factors and coefficients. Through the reversible reduction and oxidation of an electrode coating formed from three-dimensional hybrid aniline–gold nanoparticles, it has now moved on to controlling the pH of a solution, thus triggering specific reactions.

The interactions of electrons and water molecules are not just of great fundamental interest but are also studied to understand the role electrons have in damaging biomolecules. Now using ultrafast photoelectron spectroscopy, key details about the energy and lifetime of the hydrated electron in bulk and at an interface have been determined.

Monomers that contain masked ketene groups provide new opportunities for facile crosslinking and post-synthetic modification of polymers in a wide variety of materials applications.

The long-awaited first total synthesis of the structurally intriguing natural product palau'amine has now been achieved. The synthesis features cascade reactions and an 'across ring' stitching of a 'macropalau'amine', and sets the bar for future efforts towards an enantioselective variant.

Public acceptance of the expansion of nuclear power may hinge on the safe disposal of nuclear waste. Ion exchangers that remove radioactive metals — such as caesium ions — from the waste could provide part of the answer, so a flexible-framework material that selectively grab them from solution is a step in the right direction.

Monitoring the dynamics of a single molecule is impeded by their motion in solution, and immobilizing them without changing their properties is problematic. By using a trapping method that counteracts a molecule's Brownian motion, the complex dynamics of a fluorescent protein, allophycocyanin, have been investigated.

Electromerism is an unfamiliar concept to many chemists and refers to molecules that are not conventional isomers but instead differ in how the electrons are distributed across their structure. A novel example of such electromers has now been demonstrated.

Supramolecular gels, which rely on non-covalent interactions, are typically fragile. Now, hydrogels that possess remarkable mechanical strength combined with the ability to rapidly self-heal have been built through multiple non-covalent interactions.

A linear molecule containing three bipyridine ligands can be wrapped around a single metal-ion template to form an open-knot complex. The loose ends of the knot can be 'tied' together through esterification or olefin-metathesis reactions to form closed knots that do not unravel when the metal template is removed.

Chemical reactions of fullerenes and metallofullerenes lined up inside single-walled carbon nanotubes can be monitored at the atomic scale inside an aberration-corrected transmission electron microscope.

Yttrium-based catalysts can be used to stitch together two different lactone monomers in an alternating fashion to produce polyesters with well-defined primary structures. The ability to control the sequence of building blocks in polymers with increasing levels of precision offers new opportunities for tailoring the properties of designer synthetic macromolecules.

The stereochemical lability of cycloalkylzinc reagents combined with a large difference in reactivity between epimers has been exploited to form a wide variety of interesting organic compounds with both high yields and diastereoselectivities.

A molecular 'walker' can be made to move up and down a molecular 'track' by alternately locking and unlocking the two different types of covalent bonds that join the two components together. By changing the conditions under which one of the bond-forming/bond-breaking processes occurs, a directional bias for walking can be achieved.

The use of conventional computers to calculate molecular properties is hindered by the exponential increase in computational cost on increasing the size of the molecules studied. Using quantum computers could be the solution and the initial steps are now being taken.