Review Articles in 2012

The complexity of living systems makes attempts to gain a molecular-level understanding of them a unique and inspiring challenge. This Review summarizes progress in the development of bioorthogonal reaction-based fluorescent probes used to follow the spatial and temporal dynamics of biologically important analytes within living systems.

This Review describes the general trends and implications of heterogeneities within individual catalyst particles as observed by modern spatiotemporal spectroscopy. It discusses how catalytic materials have been found to display heterogeneities in structure, composition and reactivity in space and time. The implications of these findings for future catalyst design are also described.

Novel concepts in asymmetric catalysis have the potential to open up previously inaccessible reaction space. This Review reflects on the origins of an area that has undergone dramatic recent advancement: the use of chiral anions in asymmetric catalysis. Details of a selection of the latest examples are also given.

Thiolate-protected gold surfaces and interfaces are archetypal systems in various fields of current research in nanoscience, materials science, inorganic chemistry and surface science. Examples include self-assembled monolayers of organic molecules on gold, passivated gold nanoclusters and molecule–gold junctions. This Review discusses recent experimental and theoretical breakthroughs that highlight common features of gold-sulfur bonding in these systems.

Redox sites can be incorporated within dendrimers — highly branched, well-defined macromolecules — at specific locations, such as their core, branching points, periphery or inner cavities. These dendrimers can serve to functionalize surfaces, and electron-transfer processes at their redox sites show promise for various applications ranging from metallo-protein modelling to sensing to catalysis.