Cover Feature: A Blueprint for Transforming Indigos to Photoresponsive Molecular Tools (Chem. Eur. J. 43/2023)

The blue dye indigo has historically been isolated from the plant family Indigofera and widely applied in the denim industry for producing blue jeans. The advantageous photochemical properties of indigo and its derivatives have now attracted the attention of the scientific community for their use as molecular photoswitches. In their review Review (DOI: 10.1002/chem.202300981), C.-Y. Huang and S. Hecht detail the synthetic approaches to preparing indigos and discuss indigos’ applications as photoresponsive molecular tools.