Although there are natural products that contain boron, the organisms that make these compounds do so by using small molecules that react spontaneously with boric acid in the environment. No enzymes are involved. What’s more, natural organisms that create carbon-boron bonds, or organoboranes, are unknown. But that didn’t stop Frances H. Arnold, S. B. Jennifer Kan, Xiongyi Huang, and coworkers at Caltech, who reasoned that with a little genetic tinkering they . . .

Although there are natural products that contain boron, the organisms that make these compounds do so by using small molecules that react spontaneously with boric acid in the environment. No enzymes are involved. What’s more, natural organisms that create carbon-boron bonds, or organoboranes, are unknown. But that didn’t stop Frances H. Arnold, S. B. Jennifer Kan, Xiongyi Huang, and coworkers at Caltech, who reasoned that with a little genetic tinkering they . . .