This work establishes halogen bonding as a molecular recognition strategy for discriminating among nearly identical non-canonical amino acids, differing by only a single atom, thereby expanding the scope of protein engineering.

This Review summarizes the design and mechanisms of metal-based ferroptosis inducers for cancer therapy. It highlights how coordination chemistry can be leveraged to develop next-generation ferroptosis-targeting metallodrugs.

Au(I)-NHC complexes with thiolate ligands were developed to improve thiol stability while maintaining potent anticancer activity. Several complexes outperformed Auranofin and induced predominantly non-apoptotic, necrotic cell death.

This Review explains how peri-constrained naphthalene dichalcogenides (S, Se, Te) display unusual redox and multi-electron reactivity beyond typical organochalcogen compounds.

Photo-activated carbon monoxide-releasing molecules (photo-CORMs) enable spatiotemporal control of CO delivery with therapeutic potential. This study identifies sulfur- and selenium-containing ligands as promising scaffolds for efficient Mn(I) photo-CORMs in biomedical contexts.

A neutral mitochondria-targeted imaging/antioxidant-like molecule becomes a visible-light–activated prooxidant by forming a redox-active triplet state that redox-cycles with mitochondrial biomolecules to generate superoxide and trigger apoptosis.

We built modular fluorescent probes showing that O-based scaffolds drive halogen-bond-dependent cellular uptake, while S/Se analogues enter mainly via chalcogen bonding with little halogen effect.

This Review shows how pBzF enables precise photocrosslinking, mechanistic probes, and new-to-nature photoenzymes, extends to ncAA-based auxotrophy and live vaccines, and points toward red-shifted analogues, multi-site encoding, and in vivo deployment.

A one-pot enzymatic platform enables the biosynthesis and site-specific incorporation of chalcogen-containing tyrosine analogues (O, S, Se) into proteins in E. coli. Engineered TPL and orthogonal synthetases are combined to expand the genetic code.

This study establishes chalcogen-substituted chromone rotors as a tunable, dual-function platform for polarity/viscosity mapping and amyloid detection, and provides clear structure–property rules across the O/S/Se/Te series that can guide next-generation FMR design.

Systematic studies under micellar and non-micellar conditions, with varied surfactants, thiols, and pH, reveal that confined microenvironments and the nature of micellar assemblies critically control the rate of nitrite release from NO prodrugs.

An overview of how non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bond, halogen bond, chalcogen bond, tetrel bond, spodium bond etc influence metalloenzyme structure, stability and their reactivity.