What is upramolecular chemistry?  

According to the Oxford Dictionary Online, the prefix supra is used to describe something super but the term supramolecular chemistry does not mean compounds with super powers or gives you any when you eat them. It is used to describe molecules that have a higher degree of organization than a regular molecule or in simpler terms, a molecule that is composed of many other molecules. A way of differentiating molecular chemistry and supramolecular chemistry is through Figure 2.

Figure 2 Comparison between molecular and supramolecular chemistry.

Though supramolecules don’t have super powers, it still does deserve its name for it has the ability to save lives. Complex compounds such as supramolecules are the basis of life on earth. The understanding of supramolecular chemistry is the key to understanding bioorganic interactions and the development of wonder-drugs. However, a complete understanding of bioorganic systems is still out of reach because nature has spent eons perfecting these systems while we humans just started to learn about it only a few decades ago. Right now, we can only replicate biological systems with models that are just a fraction of the size of a real supramolecule (e.g. enzyme).