By drawing on nature conceptually, the practice of chemical synthesis can now be broadened in scope to include the supramolecular synthesis of supermolecules and their postassembly covalent modification to form mechanically interlocked molecules, which the chemist can use to build functioning nanosystems after the style of those found in the living world.

This review highlights the broad range of science that has arisen from the synthesis of coumarin-linked and fused heterocycle derivatives. Specific topics include their synthesis and biological activity.

Protected 4-hydroxycyclopentenones (4-HCPs) constitute an important class of intermediates in chemical synthesis. A route to this class of compound has been developed. Key steps include Noyori reduction (which establishes the stereochemistry of the product), ring-closing metathesis, and simple functional group conversions to provide a set of substituted 4-HCPs in either enantiomeric form.

Only correctly folded and mature tRNAs can leave the nucleus and enter the cytoplasm. Surprisingly, tRNA-aminoacylation has been found to occur, not only in the cytosol, but also inside the nucleus, where it may act as an additional proofreading step and facilitate the export of 'ready-to-function' aminoacyl-tRNAs.

Cyclodepsipeptide natural products often display intriguing biological activities that along with their complex molecular scaffolds, makes them interesting targets for chemical synthesis. Although cyclodepsipeptides feature highly diverse chemical structures, their synthesis is often associated with similar synthetic challenges such as the establishment of a suitable macrocyclization methodolog...

Gene synthesis is frequently used in modern molecular biology research either to create novel genes or to obtain natural genes when the synthesis approach is more flexible and reliable than cloning. DNA chemical synthesis has limits on both its length and yield, thus full-length genes have to be hierarchically constructed from synthesized DNA fragments. Gibson Assembly and its derivatives are t...

Aptamers have many inherent advantages originating from their in vitro selection and tailored chemical synthesis that makes them appealing alternatives of antibodies in bioaffinity assays. However, what ultimately matters, and that is the prerequisite to give way to all these advantages, is how well, and how selectively the aptamers bind to their targets. With the aptamer selection largely in t...

Cecropin D was synthesized by solid-phase methods and shown to be homogeneous and of correct composition and molecular weight. It was indistinguishable from natural cecropin D and constitutes a structure proof for this peptide. Several analogs of cecropin D were synthesized and used to draw conclusions about the structural features contributing to antibacterial activity. They included [Lys1]cec...

Procedures utilizing millifluidic devices for chemical synthesis and time-resolved mechanistic studies are described by taking three examples. In the first, synthesis of ultra-small copper nanoclusters is described. The second example provides their utility for investigating time resolved kinetics of chemical reactions by analyzing gold nanoparticle formation using in situ X-ray absorption spec...