Highly discriminating activation of a stable carbon-sulfur bond is achieved in the presence of a vast sea of oxygen and nitrogen heteroatoms in various biochemical transformations. 1, 2 The Principle of Hard-Soft Acids and Bases, 3 eg, the selective interaction of a soft substrate with a soft activator in a hard environment and vice versa, helps to rationalize Nature's use of biologically relevant thiophilic metals such as Ni to achieve selective disconnection of the ...