Our two other finalists were the Jacobson group's catalysis of an Sn2 by geometric preorganization (doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07811-4) (the mod's personal favorite) and the Reisman/Peters groups' report on catalytic Sm (doi.org/10.1126/science.adp5777)
A small-molecule (646 Da) hydrogen-bond-donor catalyst accelerates the SN2 step of an enantioselective Michaelis–Arbuzov reaction by recapitulating the geometric preorganization principle used by enzy...
