https://phys.org/news/2018-06-bacteria-hydroxylating-benzene.html

Getting enzymes to do novel reactions – effectively hijacking the biochemistry of living cells for our own purposes – is generally tricky, involving harsh conditions or genetic modification of the enzymes themselves.

However, researchers at Nagoya University worked around this by using "decoy" molecules, which mimic the native targets (substrates) of naturally occurring enzymes, to activate the desired reaction.