Photocatalysis in Chemical Biology: Extending the Scope of Optochemical Control and Towards New Frontiers in Semisynthetic Bioconjugates and Biocatalysis

Biomedical research has been empowered by tools that enable spatial and temporal control of biological systems. These have predominantly come from photocaged bioactive molecules (optochemical control; N. Ankenbruck, T. Courtney, Y. Naro, A. Deiters, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 2768–2798) light-dependent proteins (optogenetic L. Fenno, O. Yizhar, K. Deisseroth, Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 2011, 34, 389–412). Recent advances in photocatalysis offer the opportunity to amplify these strategies providing new dimension biorthogonality. Photocatalysis also empowers bioconjugation with unprecedented reactivities enabling crosslinking chemistry or biomolecule functionalization, while merging biocatalysis extends scope both powerful classes transformation.