Reactive sieving with foldamers: Inspiration from nature and directions for the future

Over the past several decades, chemists have designed a myriad of supramolecular scaffolds for the purpose of mimicking enzyme behavior and creating more advanced catalysts. Foldamers, one class of supramolecular structures that feature rapid, modular synthesis and dynamic structural properties and have been widely investigated for their molecular recognition properties. Specifically, our group has designed a reactive m-phenyleneethynylene foldamer, which mimics the selective properties (reactive sieving) of the isoleucine tRNA synthetase enzyme. In this concept we discuss examples that have inspired our research as well as potential directions for future advancement of this field.