Perspectives

We examine the historical development and underlying principles of foundation models realized in language and vision, and propose how physics-infused machine learning interaction potentials could dramatically transform at scale to create transformative foundation models for chemistry and materials science.

Genomic therapy offers a promising strategy for addressing central nervous system disorders. This Review highlights recent advances in chemical strategies and delivery platforms, such as lipid nanoparticles, polymers and oligonucleotide conjugates, and it discusses future directions to improve the application of genomic therapy in brain disorders.

Lipid nanoparticle-based delivery vehicles for mRNA are assembled from several different components. This Perspective discusses how these components react with each other and pose a particular analytical challenge that must be addressed to ensure the reproducibility, stability and safety of such drug formulations.

Self-driving laboratories promise accelerated discovery. As the scope of chemical processes and level of autonomy in these laboratories expand, a comprehensive safety framework is essential. We discuss here the safety development trajectory of SDLs, identifying opportunities for innovation to shape this rapidly evolving landscape.

The coordination ability of co-solvents with cationic charge carriers is discussed as a guide for selecting co-solvents for various post-lithium metal batteries. Effects beyond the solvation sheath of cationic charge carriers and the sustainable development of electrolytes are necessary for improving batteries in the future.

Self-healing crystals are an emerging class of materials that are highly responsive to dynamic stimuli. This Perspective gives an overview of the field since its inception, highlights current design principles, and discusses the methodologies used to characterize healed crystals.

This Perspective presents the developments of S-scheme heterojunctions, including their origin, formation mechanism, material design, driving forces for charge-carrier transfer, application and future developments. In particular, it introduces the characterization methods used to study ultrafast charge-transfer dynamics.

Quantifying molecular complexity has the potential to enhance retrosynthetic analysis and, thus, aid the development of efficient total syntheses. This Perspective discusses methods for rigorous, reproducible complexity measurement, highlighting their potential to revolutionize traditional complex molecule synthesis and uncover new synthetic opportunities.

The assessment of the aromaticity of actinide compounds has proven a controversial task. This Perspective highlights the application of state-of-the-art computational tools in assessing the aromaticity of actinide complexes and clusters and explains why commonly used magnetic probes, not just the nucleus-independent chemical shift but also the magnetically induced ring current, might be insufficient for assessing the aromaticity of these species.

The four core effects of high-entropy alloys are discussed and greater insights are presented. These clarifications are helpful in understanding materials from low entropy (simple two-component or three-component alloys) to high entropy (five components or greater), and in general materials design.

Mechanochemistry is the science of inducing a chemical reaction through the application of mechanical force. This Perspective focuses on combining traditional mechanochemistry with different energy inputs — heat, light, sound or electrical impulses — to advance mechanochemical synthesis.

Endergonic photocatalysis enables the catalytic and atom-economic synthesis of products with higher free energies than reactants. This Perspective highlights current progress in endergonic photocatalysis by summarizing the energetics of these reactions and points out the industrial potential of such processes.

Studies employing machine-learning (ML) tools in the chemical sciences often report their evaluations in a heterogeneous way. The evaluation guidelines provided in this Perspective should enable more rigorous ML reporting.

In this Perspective, a vision of a fully reconfigurable microfluidic device that can change its shape and function dynamically is outlined. Reconfigurable microfluidic platforms can enable new functionalities, which have the potential to go beyond the reach of current lab-on-a-chip systems.

Microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED) can determine the structure of proteins from crystals that are orders of magnitude smaller than those used by X-ray methods. Here, the application of MicroED to protein–ligand complexes is reviewed.

We propose that life originated in spontaneously formed catalytic lipid micelles. Accumulating experimental evidence shows that such micelles undergo compositional autocatalytic reproduction. Lipid-first constitutes a parsimonious alternative to the RNA-first scenario.

Reversible addition–fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerization and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) are evaluated in terms of their mechanistic strengths and weaknesses, versatility and latest synthetic advances.

Although a stalwart in materials science, electron diffraction has only recently become popular for characterizing molecular structures. This Perspective describes practical aspects of the method, which affords complementary information to X-ray and neutron diffraction.

Implementing effective chemomechanical coupling in the microscopic world is challenging. This Perspective describes recent advances of chemically-powered swimming or diffusion of objects on the molecular scale, nanoscale and microscale.

Understanding the relationship between reaction rate and thermodynamic driving force is central to developing efficient catalysts. This Perspective describes this relationship and the conditions that can give rise to reversible catalysis, which is relevant to energy conversions of fuels and motor proteins alike.