Chemical oscillator’s tick-tock action catalyses reaction regular as clockwork

A piperidine-based oscillator has been made that can catalyse an independent reaction periodically without losing its oscillating properties.¹ The discovery could be used to construct complex networks of reactions that would otherwise interfere with one another, opening new opportunities in chemical synthesis.

‘Catalysis and oscillations are two essential processes occurring in living cells,’ says Syuzanna Harutyunyan at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who led the study. ‘We have successfully coupled these two processes for the first time in a synthetic system to build a catalytically active oscillator.’ Although oscillating reactions are common in many important biological processes, including cell division and heartbeat regulation, the development of synthetic oscillators with additional functions has remained a challenge.