In the first of this issue's HOT PAPERS also featured on the outside front cover, Nicholas Westwood from University of St Andrews, UK, and Gary Ward from the University of Vermont, US, demonstrate that Conoidin A blocks an essential stage in the life cycle of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii.

In the second HOT PAPER Toshiki Tanaka and Toshihisa Mizuno from the Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan, report the manipulation of protein-complex function using an engineered heterotrimeric coiled-coil switch.

The article featured in this issue's inside front cover is by Minoru Ueda from Tohoku University, Japan. In the article the team report a unique synthetic route to coronatine employing an exo-selective Diels-Alder reaction as a key step. They observe a remarkable difference in stomatal opening activity between the enantiomers of coronatine.

This issue's Perspective article written by Sherry R. Chemler from the University at Buffalo, US, discusses the enantioselective intramolecular aminative functionalization of unactivated alkenes and related pi-systems as straight-forward strategy for the synthesis of chiral nitrogen heterocycles.