Synergistic photoredox-pyridoxal radical biocatalysis enables synthesis of noncanonical amino acids

Recently in Science, Yang and co-workers reported a novel biocatalytic method to access valuable noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) in a single operation. This unique reaction mode that was previously not known in biochemistry and organic chemistry was realized through the synergistic merger of photoredox catalysis and pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP) biocatalysis.