Bioorganic Chemistry publishes research that addresses biological questions at the molecular level, using organic chemistry and principles of physical organic chemistry. The scope of the journal covers a range of topics at the organic chemistry-biology interface, including: enzyme catalysis, biotransformation and enzyme inhibition; nucleic acids chemistry; medicinal chemistry; natural product chemistry, natural product synthesis and natural product biosynthesis; antimicrobial agents; lipid and peptide chemistry; biophysical chemistry; biological probes; bio-orthogonal chemistry and biomimetic chemistry.

For manuscripts dealing with synthetic bioactive compounds, the Journal requires that the molecular target of the compounds described must be known, and must be demonstrated experimentally in the manuscript. For studies involving natural products, if the molecular target is unknown, some data beyond simple cell-based toxicity studies to provide insight into the mechanism of action is required. Studies supported by molecular docking are welcome, but must be supported by experimental data. The Journal does not consider manuscripts that are purely theoretical or computational in nature.

The Journal publishes regular articles, short communications and reviews. Reviews are normally invited by Editors or Editorial Board members. Authors of unsolicited reviews should first contact an Editor or Editorial Board member to determine whether the proposed article is within the scope of the Journal.

Editor Wen-Bin Zhang

Wen-Bin Zhang is currently a professor at the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Peking University. He received his BS from Peking University in 2004 and his PhD in Polymer Science from the University of Akron in 2010. He continued there as a postdoc for one year, before moving to Caltech for a second postdoc. He started his independent career at Peking University in 2013 and was promoted to a tenured associate professor in 2019 and to a full professor with tenure in 2020. The theme of his research in the past decade has been on precision macromolecules. His goal is to integrate the design principles and building blocks of both synthetic and biological polymers for the development of precision macromolecules with unique functions for health-related applications. To date, he has published 134 peer-reviewed papers in Science, PNAS, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem., Macromolecules, ACS Macro Lett. etc. He received the “Distinguished Lectureship Award” from the Chemical Society of Japan in 2017, the Distinguished Young Scholars Award from the National Natural Science Foundation of China in 2019, and the Bayer Investigator Award in 2021.