A personal 360° view of applications of ‘biomimetic’ molecular recognition

Abstract Molecular recognition between biological molecules has formed the basis for innumerable applications in biotechnology for the last seven decades or so. Techniques such as affinity chromatography, solid‐phase and aqueous two‐phase extraction, affinity precipitation, biomimetic catalytic systems, biosensors and molecular imprinting all exploit this fundamental knowledge in multiple preparative and analytical scenarios where reproducibility and cost‐effectiveness are key factors. In this personal view, the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches are discussed and some of the challenges in their understanding identified. In particular, whilst excellent in silico tools are available for protein structure determination and molecular docking are readily available, they are of limited value when a solid phase or matrix is interposed for practical reasons. Nevertheless, the combined use of computational design algorithms, AI, big data and robotic systems to create self‐driving laboratory environments could eventually speed up development of these critical application technologies. © 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).