Reviews & Analysis

Metabolic labelling with unnatural sugars can be used to selectively label tumours with chemical tags. These tags then enable the targeted delivery of molecular cargo including diagnostic and therapeutic agents. This Review Article discusses progress in the design and delivery of unnatural sugars for metabolic labelling of tumour cells and the subsequent development of tumour-targeted chemistry.

The past decade has seen unprecedented growth in the development of chemical methods that proceed by mechanisms involving radical intermediates, but controlling absolute stereochemistry has been a longstanding challenge in this area. This Review Article examines how attractive non-covalent interactions between a chiral catalyst and the substrate can exert enantiocontrol in radical reactions.

Cyclic polymers have a ring-like architecture and one of the most important consequences of this topology is the absence of any chain ends, which typically have a substantial impact on the physical properties of macromolecules. This Review Article discusses advances in the synthesis, purification and characterization of cyclic polymers and the potential applications they may prove useful for.

Growing polymers directly on surfaces has emerged as a powerful tool because it can provide a route to otherwise inaccessible structures such as defect-free linear chains, graphene nanoribbons and two-dimensional networks. This Review Article describes general principles and key aspects of this method from the perspectives of surface science and polymer chemistry.