This special issue of the Journal presents papers authored by RACI and AAS award winners from 2017 and 2018.

Pseudoprolines facilitate peptide cyclization reactions by acting as traceless turn-inducers to provide faster reaction times and higher yields of cyclic peptide products.

Ruthenium alkynyl complexes are highly efficient NLO-active molecules; dipolar examples exhibit record values of quadratic optical non-linearity, and specific octupolar ruthenium alkynyl stars and dendrimers show record values of cubic optical non-linearity and multiphoton absorption cross-sections. Protonation–deprotonation, oxidation–reduction, and photoisomerization stimuli have been employed at certain ruthenium alkynyl complexes to demonstrate NLO switching across a record number of states.

This highlight article focuses on some seminal discoveries in organopalladium(IV) chemistry and the implications and notable applications of these findings in contemporary palladium catalysis and in particular C–H activation.

Although there are 530 known endemic Tasmanian vascular plants, natural products isolation studies have been performed on only 27 of these species (~5.1 %). This report provides the first review of the natural products isolated from endemic Tasmanian plant species and covers ~70 years of research in this area.

Mixing block copolymers and proteins is an easy way to encapsulate the charged payload in nanoparticles. The resulting polyion complex micelles – PIC micelles – are stable in aqueous solution while the protein is protected against degradation. This approach can be used to deliver therapeutic proteins, and also to stabilise enzymes.

Direct H₂O₂ fuel cell (DHPFCs) utilise electrochemically generated H₂O₂ and are well suited for renewable energy storage and transportation. Given that H₂O₂ acts as both the fuel and the oxidant in these systems, DHPFCs can be designed to be membraneless and fully reversible, giving them several advantages over other ‘clean-energy’ fuel cells. This review examines the recent research into electrochemical H₂O₂ generation and its use in DHPFCs.

Deconstruction of a DYRK1A lead molecule leads to ring-opened analogues that do not show activity towards DYRK1A. However, they still reduce viability of glioblastoma cells through other mechanistic pathways.

The structure of a rearranged spongian diterpene chromolactol from the Indo-Pacific nudibranch Goniobranchus coi has been investigated by NMR experiments informed by molecular modelling studies and density functional calculations. A biosynthetic pathway leading to the preferred diastereomer of chromolactol (1a) is presented.

The potential energy surface (PES) for the beryllium dimer has long been considered one of the most challenging problems in quantum chemistry. This work determines an accurate PES for the beryllium dimer and uses this reference data to evaluate the performance of approximate density functional theory and coupled cluster methods for this challenging PES.

The fluorine-18 radiolabelling optimisation of the selective muscarinic M₂ imaging agent [¹⁸F]FP-TZTP was performed using continuous-flow microfluidics. When scaled up to production-level quantities, [¹⁸F]FP-TZTP could be produced using decreased amounts of reagents in good radiochemical yield and molar activity.

The electrochemical reduction mechanism of 2,4-dinitrotoluene (DNT) in ionic liquids is studied. Stepwise reduction of the two nitro groups gave rise to two distinctive peaks. The first peak becomes chemically irreversible at increasing concentration, and digital simulation suggests that the follow-up chemical steps involve dimerisation of the radical anion, and/or abstraction of a proton from another DNT molecule.

In this study, a PEGylated iron MOF nanoparticle as a new and effective agent for Fenton cancer therapy method is reported. This stable nanoparticle, which can destroy cancer cells using the cells’ H₂O₂ does not have the issues such as low stability, high aggregation, and poor selectivity that have been reported for similar nanoparticles.