Emerging investigators in the UK – editorial

Supramolecular chemistry has witnessed a dramatic evolution from the early days of macrocyclic chemistry to the intricacy of molecular machines. The field is particularly vibrant in the UK where a new generation of investigators is striving to push further the boundaries of this field. This burgeoning of new groups in supramolecular chemistry comes as the earlier generation, whose work was highlighted and accelerated by the 1987 Nobel Prize, now occupy senior positions – it is their academic progeny who are now ‘leaving home’ and establishing new independent groups. Now spurred on by the 2016 Nobel Prize, these new groups are bringing in diverse influences and taking supramolecular chemistry to new places. This special issue, highlighting Emerging Investigators in the UK, covers the breadth of what makes this branch of chemistry such a diverse and exciting field of research.

We start our UK tour in Reading with a contribution from Greenland and coworkers exploring the solid-state stacking of macrocyclic viologen radical-cations. Taking a North bearing brings us to Loughborough where Butler and coworkers use europium complex for the recognition of phosphorylated tyrosine residues in peptides. Our next step is Durham with a review from McGonigal about multiply threaded rotaxanes. Crossing the Scottish border to St Andrews, Kay and co-workers describe switchable dynamic covalent systems based on boronate esters. From there, we take a westward turn to reach Glasgow where Forgan and coworkers investigate the properties of urea-functionalised metal-organic frameworks, while Symes and co-worker look at the effects of steric bulk on the solution and redox properties of cobalt-diimine complexes. Cruising along the West coast leads us to Lancaster with a paper by Evans and co-worker that presents a new approach for the synthesis of rotaxanes using a hydrogen bond template. Finally, and because Science has no borders, our journey ends in Ireland with a contribution from Elmes and co-workers reporting a squaramide-based chemosensor for fluoride.

To conclude we would like to thank Bruce Gibb, Phil Gale and the Supramolecular Chemistry editorial team for helping us assembling this issue and all the authors and reviewers for their contributions.

We hope that you will take as much pleasure reading this Special Issue as we had editing it.

Guillaume De Bo
School of Chemistry, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
[email protected]
Jonathan A. Kitchen
Chemistry, Institute of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, Massey university, Auckland, New Zealand
[email protected]
Christopher J. Serpell
School of Physical Sciences, Ingram Building, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
[email protected]