Nature Chemistry, Published online: 18 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41557-026-02224-4 The incorporation of unnatural chemical reactions into biosynthetic pathways is a key aim of synthetic biology. Now it has been shown that a nitrene precursor derived from the natural metabolite p-aminobenzoic acid can be generated through biosynthesis in Escherichia coli and transferred to several biosynthesized olefins to form new-to-nature amino alcohol, diamine and diarylamine products.