Feature Channels: Chemistry

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One scientist is pioneering a new field in medicine — curing diseases by replacing the missing proteins that cause certain disorders, almost like an artificial hand replaces the function of a hand lost to injury. Another is an internationally known leader in research on using artificial photosynthesis to make energy from sunlight and water. They will deliver the next lectures in the Kavli Foundation Lecture series at the 246th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have discovered the molecular mechanism by which the deadly Ebola virus assembles, providing potential new drug targets. Surprisingly, the study showed that the same molecule that assembles and releases new viruses also rearranges itself into different shapes, with each shape controlling a different step of the virus’s life cycle.

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Chemists at Indiana University Bloomington have produced detailed descriptions of human folate receptor proteins, a key development for designing new drugs that can target cancer and inflammatory diseases.

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Scientists from the Jupiter campus of The Scripps Research Institute have shown a novel way to dramatically raise the potency of drug candidates targeting RNA, resulting in a 2,500-fold improvement in potency and significantly increasing their potential as therapeutic agents.

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University of Arkansas organic chemist Nan Zheng is investigating the development of environmentally sustainable methods for amine synthesis.

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PNNL chemists have unexpectedly made two differently colored crystals - one orange, one blue - from one chemical in the same flask while studying a special kind of molecular connection called an agostic bond. The discovery provides new insights into important industrial chemical reactions such as those that occur while making plastics and fuels.

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Researchers at the University of Washington and Rice University have developed a new method that can look at a specific segment of DNA and pinpoint a single mutation, which could help diagnose and treat diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis.

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The results of a new study by neurological researchers at Rush University Medical Center show that a sudden decrease of testosterone, the male sex hormone, may cause Parkinson’s like symptoms in male mice.

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A team led by William Fenical at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered a new chemical compound from an ocean microbe in a preliminary research finding that could one day set the stage for new treatments for anthrax and other ailments such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

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Chemists from North Carolina State University have performed a DNA-based logic-gate operation within a human cell. The research may pave the way to more complicated computations in live cells, as well as new methods of disease detection and treatment.

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Researchers at the University of Arkansas have identified that water, when chilled to a very low temperature, transforms into a new form of liquid.

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A normally staid University of Chicago scientist has stunned many of his colleagues with his radical solution to a 135-year-old mystery in cosmochemistry. At issue is how numerous small, glassy spherules had become embedded within specimens of the largest class of meteorites—the chondrites.

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University of Adelaide research has produced a potential new antibiotic which could help in the battle against bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

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A discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may represent a significant advance in the quest to create a "hydrogen economy" that would use this abundant element to store and transfer energy.

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Scientists have discovered the role of the membrane protein TonB in bacteria that cause a wide variety of diseases, including typhoid fever, plague, meningitis and dysentery. Results may lead to new and improved human and animal antibiotics.

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New research reveals that the likely culprit behind Alzheimer's has a different molecular structure than current drugs' target -- perhaps explaining why current medications produce little improvement in patients.

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In the world, there are a lot of small molecules people would like to get rid of, or at least convert to something useful, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison chemist Robert J. Hamers.

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A mother's prolonged use of antibacterial soaps containing the chemical triclocarban may harm nursing babies, according to a recent study from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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Researchers discover way to use iron as catalyst for widely used chemical process, replacing heavy metals.

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Using biochemistry and mass spectrometry, researchers “trapped” scores of new candidate substrates of the protease ClpXP to reveal how protein degradation is critical to cell cycle progression and bacterial development. The new understanding could lead to identifying new antibiotic targets.

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University of Delaware chemist Joel Rosenthal and doctoral student John DiMeglio have developed an inexpensive catalyst that uses the electricity generated from solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into synthetic fuels.

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In this week’s issue of Nature, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute report their discovery of an important trick that a well-known intrinsically disordered protein uses to expand and control its functionality.

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A chemical hormone released in the body as a reaction to stress could be a key trigger of the mechanism for the late onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Memory improved in mice injected with a small, drug-like molecule discovered by UCSF San Francisco researchers studying how cells respond to biological stress.

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In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) a research team from University of North Carolina at Charlotte announced that they had uncovered a previously unknown surveillance mechanism, known as a DNA damage checkpoint, used by cells to monitor oxidatively damaged DNA. The finding, first-authored by UNC Charlotte biology graduate student Jeremy Willis and undergraduate honors student Yogin Patel, was also co-authored by undergraduate honors student Barry L. Lentz and assistant professor of biology Shan Yan.

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Monell researchers identified odorants from human skin cells that can be used to identify melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. In addition a nanotechnology-based sensor could reliably differentiate melanoma cells from normal skin cells. Non-invasive odor analysis may be a valuable technique in the detection and early diagnosis of human melanoma.

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Begun over 20 years ago at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) to study medicinal properties of Costa Rican plants, the Natural Products Drug Discovery Group has branched out to Africa, Australia, the Bahamas, Yemen and Cuba.

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Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today’s electronics.

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Researchers are targeting a possible new weapon in the fight against malaria, science that could also be applied in the fight against other devastating mosquito-borne illnesses, according to a Vanderbilt study published in PLOS ONE.

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Chemical engineers have discovered a new chemical process to make p-xylene, an important ingredient of plastics for products such as soda bottles and packaging, at 90 percent yield from lignocellulosic biomass, the highest yield achieved to date. Details are in the current issue of Green Chemistry.

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In an age when microbial pathogens are growing increasingly resistant to the conventional antibiotics used to tamp down infection, a team of Wisconsin scientists has synthesized a potent new class of compounds capable of curbing the bacteria that cause staph infections.

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Plastic additives known as phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) are odorless, colorless and just about everywhere: They turn up in flooring, plastic cups, beach balls, plastic wrap, intravenous tubing and—according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the bodies of most Americans. Once perceived as harmless, phthalates have come under increasing scrutiny. A growing collection of evidence suggests dietary exposure to phthalates (which can leech from packaging and mix with food) may cause significant metabolic and hormonal abnormalities, especially during early development.

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A new study shows how complex biochemical transformations may have been possible under conditions that existed when life began on the early Earth. The study shows that RNA is capable of catalyzing electron transfer under conditions similar to those of the early Earth.

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When it comes to cleaning up the next massive crude oil spill, one of the best and most eco-friendly solutions for the job may be low-grade cotton from West Texas.

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Some materials dissolve too quickly, before cardiac arteries can fully heal, and some hang around forever. Zinc, however, may be just right.

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Experiments at Johns Hopkins have unearthed clues about which protein signaling molecules are allowed into hollow, hair-like “antennae,” called cilia, that alert cells to critical changes in their environments.

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Breaking research appearing online today in Clinical Chemistry, the journal of AACC, demonstrates that a recently developed diagnostic test can detect the new strain of influenza (H7N9) currently causing an outbreak in China.

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An international team of researchers, including Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, geochemist James Day, has found new evidence that material contained in oceanic lava flows originated in Earth’s ancient Archean crust.

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An international team of researchers, led by scientists at Boston University’s Department of Earth and Environment, has found evidence that material contained in young oceanic lava flows originated at the Earth’s surface in the Archean (>2.45 billions years ago). The new finding helps constrain the timing of the initiation of plate tectonics, the origin of some of the chemical heterogeneity in the Earth’s mantle, and may shed light on how the chaotically convecting mantle could preserve such material for so long. The study appears in the April 25 issue of the journal Nature

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A team of researchers led by Artem R. Oganov, a professor of theoretical crystallography in the Department of Geosciences, has made a startling prediction that challenges existing chemical models and current understanding of planetary interiors — magnesium oxide, a major material in the formation of planets, can exist in several different compositions. The team’s findings, “Novel stable compounds in the Mg-O system under high pressure,” are published in the online edition of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. The existence of these compounds — which are radically different from traditionally known or expected materials — could have important implications.

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A Sandia Labs engineer who trained U.S. soldiers to avoid improvised explosive devices (IEDs) has developed a fertilizer that helps plants grow but can’t detonate a bomb. It’s an alternative to ammonium nitrate, an agricultural staple that is also the raw ingredient in most of the IEDs in Afghanistan.

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When the space shuttle Atlantis touched down in the summer of 2011 at Cape Canaveral, closing the book on the U.S. shuttle program, a team of U.S. Army researchers stood at the ready, eager to get their gloved hands on a small device in the payload that housed a set of biological samples. On Monday at the Experimental Biology 2013 conference in Boston, the team will present the results of nearly two years’ worth of study on those samples, results that shed light on how the human immune system responds to stress and assaults while in space – and maybe here on Earth.

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Fundamental changes are needed in the education of the scientists whose work impacts medicine, drug discovery, development of sustainable new fuels and other global challenges society is facing in the 21st century. Those changes in graduate education in chemistry are the topic of a special symposium here today at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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Peter J. Stang, Ph.D., distinguished professor of chemistry at the University of Utah and editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), has been named winner of the 2013 Priestley Medal by the American Chemical Society (ACS). It is the highest honor bestowed by the world’s largest scientific society.

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Cooking an egg may seem like the simplest of culinary arts, but this process remains the topic of a huge controversy among chefs and experts on the chemistry of cooking. Two such experts today will lead off a special edition of a popular live broadcast series originating here courtesy of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.

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Renowned for its cuisine and chefs and as a global hub of the energy industry, New Orleans this week hosts what news media have described as the “World Series of Science,” one of the year’s largest and most important scientific conferences. The meeting, which begins today and continues through Thursday, happens to have the theme “CHEF,” which stands for “The Chemistry of Energy and Food.”

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have illuminated the mechanism at the heart of one of the most useful processes in modern chemistry. A reaction that is robust and easy to perform, it is widely employed to synthesize new pharmaceuticals, biological probes, new materials and other products.

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Dark and sleek, it hides beneath the water waiting for prey. A Texas Tech University researcher says the target will never know what hit them because they probably can’t smell the voracious pirate perch.

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Even though the concept is important to plant and human physiology, osmosis is understood in biology and chemistry in simple -- and often incorrect -- way.