Chemical mimicry of viral capsid self-assembly via corannulene-based pentatopic tectons

The icosahedron, as the polyhedron closest in symmetry to the sphere, is one of the most compelling Platonic solids for chemists to construct. Here, the authors assemble a supramolecular icosahedron from twelve pentatopic corannulene-based tectons, a strategy that was proposed over a decade ago but only now synthetically realized.