Reviews & Analysis

Diagnosing disease states relies on sensing imbalances in the quantities of markers present in biological fluids. Now a biologically compatible gold nanoparticle sensing-system that detects proteins in serum has been developed, offering great potential for medical diagnostics.

One of the challenges facing the hydrogen economy is how to store and release the gas controllably. Although the large internal volumes of metal–organic frameworks offer promise, how can you keep the hydrogen inside?

For six days during the summer of 2009, hundreds of young researchers gathered in Germany on the shores of Lake Constance to take part in the 59th Meeting of Nobel Laureates at Lindau — this year dedicated to the topic of chemistry.

The exact nature of the gold–carbon bond formed during homogeneous gold catalysis has recently attracted a lot of interest and is somewhat controversial. Now a study of the bonding and trends in reactivity of various gold complexes offers new insights into whether such structures can be defined as gold-stabilized cations or gold carbenes.

New methodology that couples together carbonyl compounds with boronic acids shows much promise for synthesis owing to ease of access of the building blocks, functional group tolerance and broad scope of the reaction.

Saytzeff's rule is the result of empirical observations, and can be used to predict the outcome of elimination reactions. Now, ab initio calculations have provided the long-sought evidence to show that hyperconjugation is the key that unlocks the origin of this rule.

The two established models of chemical bonding, covalent and ionic, do not accurately describe all forms of bonds. This article explains how 'charge-shift' bonds — with a large covalent–ionic resonance interaction energy — are a third type of bond, and discusses some examples.

The most stable fullerenes obey the isolated-pentagon rule (IPR): hexagons of carbon atoms entirely surround pentagons to minimize strain. Recently, some examples of fused-pentagon fullerenes have been reported and this Review summarizes current work to stabilize non-IPR fullerenes.

Small anions can be used to modulate the physical properties of supramolecular gels by interacting with the low-molecular-weight gelators from which such materials are composed. A better understanding of this anion-tuning effect will aid in the rational design of responsive gels that may prove useful for a number of practical applications.

Small sugar molecules produced by an autocatalytic reaction cycle confined inside vesicle-based 'artificial cells' can trigger a response in living bacterial cells.

Scientists have long been intrigued by a mechanism first predicted by Alan Turing that leads to self-organizing chemical patterns. Now they have a guide to creating them experimentally.

The field of spin transition has been dominated by six-coordinate octahedral metal ions, but now an unusual spin transition has been found for an oxide containing a square-planar coordinate iron(II).

Biopolymers, ingeniously designed by nature, can combine different mechanical properties and even adapt to changes in their environment. By imitating the structure of a protein, chemists have now made a strong, tough polymer that also exhibits elastic properties.

At arguably one of the prettiest locations in England, the Nineteenth Lakeland Symposium brought together an international group of delegates from academia and industry to discuss a breadth of topics at the cutting edge of synthetic and heterocyclic organic chemistry.

A racemic mixture of tartaric acid forms mirror-image domains with equal propensity when adsorbed on a copper surface. When one enantiomer is present in a slight excess, however, only ordered domains comprising the major isomer are formed.

Converting methane into more useful and readily transportable compounds has previously required the use of metal-based oxo catalysts, but now sulfur and phosphorus are showing their mettle.

Metal ions have been incorporated at specific pre-programmed locations into a well-defined, three-dimensional DNA structure. Applications of such cages could arise from the functionalities of the metal centres, guest encapsulation or biomimetic properties.

The catalytically active form of an iridium complex changes reversibly in the presence or absence of hydrogen. Such catalysts may be essential for the adoption of organic hydrogen-storage materials as an alternative to petroleum-derived fuels.