Beyond symmetric self-assembly and effective molarity: unlocking functional enzyme mimics with robust organic cages

• Keith G. Andrews

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 421–443, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.30

• symmetry to enable promising catalytic modes. Keywords: cavity confinement catalysis; enzyme mimicry; robust organic cages; self-assembly; supramolecular catalysis; Introduction I frequently introduce my research on organic cage enzyme mimics with the following observation. For hundreds of years

• that an underexplored cavity type, robust organic cages [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47], are uniquely positioned to facilitate these advances. Outline and Overview The aim of this perspective is twofold: (1) to briefly review the state of the art of cavity catalysis, highlighting the catalytic

• concepts of organization and polarization, and anticipating future developments; and, (2) to introduce robust organic cages as functional enzyme mimics, and highlight how their unique features might advance cavity catalysis and provide more realistic enzyme models for studying electric field catalysis and