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Small organic molecules underpin modern life, from medicines and flavours to advanced materials. Much of this functional diversity comes from shape: modest changes in a molecule’s 3D structure can completely change its properties. To explore these structural effects efficiently, chemists often synthesize libraries of compounds through the Lego-like assembly of molecules from interchangeable chemical building blocks1. However, such approaches are only as useful as the types of carbon–carbon (C–C) bond that form between the building blocks during assembly. Writing in Nature, Zhang et al.2 report chemistry that not only enables the modular and iterative synthesis of a ubiquitous type of C–C bond — C(sp3)–C(sp3) bonds, which connect carbons that are already attached to three other atoms — but that also controls the 3D configuration of the attached atoms.

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Nature 652, 303-304 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00809-0

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Competing Interests

D.J.B is listed as an inventor on patents relating to (tetramethyl N-methyliminodiacetic acid) (TIDA) boronates used in modular synthesis. Financial support to D.J.B. was provided by the National Institutes of Health R35GM159997.

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