In 1924, Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin claimed that life developed through chemical changes of organic molecules. The Weizmann Institute’s Prof. Doron Lancet has now made discoveries about lipids that support Oparin’s ideas. Lancet’s findings could also help identify early, lipid-based life forms on other worlds.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced funding for research that will take advantage of new and emerging capabilities to probe materials and chemical processes at time scales of a quadrillionth of a second or less.
Chemists at Argonne and Ames national laboratories have spotted an important and unexpected reaction mechanism — called redox behavior — in some catalyst support materials that are commonly used in the chemical industry.
Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow Jaqueline Loetsch Kiplinger has been announced as a fellow of the American Chemical Society. She is among 51 new fellows for the nation’s key chemistry organization and is one of only seven from Los Alamos in the laboratory’s 75-year history.
A team of researchers recently discovered a new aspirin polymorph that’s predicted to dissolve faster than current form I aspirin tablets, which would mean faster pain relief after ingestion. Greater dissolving efficiency also means that each tablet would require less of the compound. Chunhua (Tony) Hu, New York University, will present the painstaking story of aspirin IV alongside its structural definition at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association.
Phospholipases are enzymes that cleave the tail group off of phospholipids, which make up cell membranes. These tails, or free fatty acids, can go on to act as signaling molecules. Lysosomal phospholipase A2, or LPA2, is a phospholipase from the macrophages that protect the lung.
People with chronic kidney disease are at unusually high risk of also developing cardiovascular disease; in fact, a patient with non-dialysis kidney disease is more likely to die of heart failure than to develop end-stage kidney failure. However traditional atherosclerosis risk factors contribute less strongly to cardiovascular disease in chronic kidney disease patients than in subjects with intact kidney function.
Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have created a material derived from crab shells and tree fibers that has the potential to replace the flexible plastic packaging used to keep food fresh.
Many vaccines become ineffective when exposed to room temperature or heat. This challenge can prevent patients from accessing lifesaving immunizations and increase the risk of global pandemics. During the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association, Jeremiah Gassensmith, University of Texas at Dallas, will describe his lab’s work developing metal-organic framework vaccines. This new biocompatible polymer framework “freezes” proteins inside vaccines. The proteins then dissolve when injected in human skin. This innovation could help health care providers transport and administer vaccines in remote areas with unreliable power.
Diener Precision Pumps plans to launch their new Silencer LD gear pump at the AACC exhibition in Chicago, July 31st - August 2nd. Booth 4409.
A clinical trial is currently underway to evaluate the predictive values of the STELLUX® Chemiluminescence Calprotectin ELISA for the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), specifically Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). The clinical trial will evaluate the use of the assay to aid in the differentiation of IBD from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) when used in conjunction with other diagnostic testing.
Studying the photochemistry has shown that ultraviolet radiation can set off harmful chemical reactions in the human body and, alternatively, can provide “photo-protection” by dispersing extra energy. To better understand the dynamics of these photochemical processes, a group of scientists irradiated the RNA base uracil with ultraviolet light and documented its behavior on a picosecond timescale. They discuss their work this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
A new molecule designed by University of Adelaide researchers shows great promise for future treatment of many cancers.
A team of Florida State University researchers is using artificial intelligence to identify which among hundreds of thousands of hypothetical crystal structures can result in the prediction of new chemical compounds.
By some estimates, 18 million people die each year from sepsis triggered by endotoxins – fragments of the outer membranes of bacteria. A biochemical engineer at Missouri University of Science and Technology has patented a method of removing these harmful elements from water and also from pharmaceutical formulations.Her goal: improve drug safety and increase access to clean drinking water in the developing world.
A stable cell line of Wolbachia-infected fruit fly cells turned out to be an invaluable tool for researchers seeking new drugs to treat river blindness and related diseases. That's because the parasitic worms that cause these diseases are actually dependent on Wolbachia bacteria living within their cells. Kill the Wolbachia, and the worms die.
A review of more than 200 studies reveals that olfactory receptors—proteins that bind to odors that aid the sense of smell—perform a wide range of mostly unknown functions outside the nose. The function of extra-nasal olfactory receptors has the potential to be used in the diagnosis and treatment of health conditions such as cancer.
When most people think of tea and molasses, their thoughts don’t stray any further than the kitchen. Meghana Bollimpalli, a Central High School student who was mentored by two chemistry professors at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, saw the potential to create a less-expensive renewable energy source that has earned her more than $60,000 in scholarships and prize money from science fair competitions.
The compound urea is currently the most popular nitrogen soil fertilizer. It’s a way to get plants the nitrogen they need to grow. There’s just one problem with urease: it works too well! New research suggests farmers may have a choice in how they slow the release of nitrogen, depending on their soil’s acidity.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago are the first to describe why CRISPR gene editing sometimes fails to work, and how the process can be made to be much more efficient.
Through x-ray crystallography and kinase-inhibitor specificity profiling, University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers, in collaboration with researchers at Peking University and Zhejiang University, reveal that curcumin, a natural occurring chemical compound found in the spice turmeric, binds to the kinase enzyme dual-specificity tyrosine-regulated kinase 2 (DYRK2) at the atomic level. This previously unreported biochemical interaction of curcumin leads to inhibition of DYRK2 that impairs cell proliferation and reduces cancer burden.
How do insects survive harsh northern winters? Unlike mammals, they don’t have thick coats of fur to keep warm. But they do have antifreeze. Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) prevent ice from forming and spreading inside their bodies. The existence of these AFPs has been known for decades, but the mechanisms governing this unique survival technique have proven difficult to determine.
Two years after inventing a microfluidic chip believed to help detect a life-threatening blood infection, researchers in the Texas Tech University Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center are finally seeing their product work successfully for human patients.
A DNA-sensing enzyme forms droplets that act as tiny bioreactors creating molecules to stimulate innate immunity – the body’s first response to infection, UT Southwestern researchers report.
Motivated by a desire to better understand the molecular circuitry underlying neuroblastoma and limitations of current methods for predicting disease progression and outcome, researchers from the Kulesa Lab at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and collaborators at the University of Michigan and Oxford University set out to construct a logic-based model incorporating information about developmental signaling pathways implicated in the disease.
The survival mechanisms of polar fish have led scientists at the University of Warwick to develop of a revolutionary approach to ‘freeze’ bacteria.
An extremely fast “electron camera” at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has produced the most detailed atomic movie of the decisive point where molecules hit by light can either stay intact or break apart. The results could lead to a better understanding of how molecules respond to light in processes that are crucial for life, like photosynthesis and vision, or that are potentially harmful, such as DNA damage from ultraviolet light.
Florida State scientists have devised a new strategy for synthesizing notoriously difficult carbocyclic 5-8-5 fused ring systems, a molecular structure with broad therapeutic potential.
Dr. Angela Lueking, a professor of energy and mineral engineering and chemical engineering at Pennsylvania State University and a recent program director at the National Science Foundation, is joining Missouri S&T as associate dean of research in the College of Engineering and Computing starting Aug. 1.
St. Louis, May 14, 2018 BacterioScan, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a 510(k) Premarket Notification clearance for its 216Dx Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) detection system. The BacterioScan 216Dx system is a rapid automated diagnostic system for the detection of bacterial UTIs, one of the most common types of infection.
The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology this week named a dozen scientists the winners of its annual awards. The winners were nominated by colleagues and other leaders in their fields for making significant contributions to biochemistry and molecular biology and the training of emerging scientists.
A study by a team that includes Amrita Banerjee, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences at North Dakota State University, Fargo, shows promise in administering insulin in pill form. Banerjee is listed as first author in the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists at Missouri University of Science and Technology are drawing inspiration from toy building blocks to create fixed molecular units used to accelerate the material discovery process known as rational design. They’ll use these “molecular blocks” to discover highly ionic conductive materials that could be used to make today’s much sought after all-solid-state lithium batteries.
The research offers another approach for tackling diseases that have been considered "undruggable," including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and certain cancers.
AACC, a global scientific and medical professional organization dedicated to better health through laboratory medicine, is pleased to announce that the impact factor of its journal, Clinical Chemistry, has risen to 8.636 in the 2017 Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports. This impact factor places Clinical Chemistry in the top 2.5% of 12,271 ranked academic journals and speaks to the significant influence of the science it publishes on laboratory medicine and patient care.
Liquid water sustains life on earth, but its physical properties remain mysterious among scientific researchers. Recently, a team of Swiss researchers used existing THz spectroscopy techniques to measure liquid water’s hydrogen bonding. Future efforts with this technique could one day help explain water’s peculiar properties. The team reports their findings in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
To improve water treatment, researchers use modeling to understand how chemical byproducts form during the advanced oxidation process.
The Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences today announced the 2018 Laureates of the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, who will each receive $250,000: the largest unrestricted scientific prize offered to America’s most promising faculty-level scientific researchers 42 years of age and younger.
Bioelectrochemical systems combine the best of both worlds – microbial cells with inorganic materials – to make fuels and other energy-rich chemicals with unrivaled efficiency. Yet technical difficulties have kept them impractical anywhere but in a lab. Now researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a novel nanoscale membrane that could address these issues and pave the way for commercial scale-up.
StealthCo, Inc., an Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based firm doing business as Stealth Mark, has exclusively licensed an invisible micro-taggant from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The anticounterfeiting technology features a novel materials coding system that uses an infrared marker for identification.
A Mississippi State faculty member and structural biophysicist is the recipient of a $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how bacterial proteins attach to surfaces and impact public health.
A new study provides a platform for predicting how microbial gut communities work and represents a first step toward understanding how to manipulate the properties of the gut ecosystem. This could allow scientists to, for example, design a probiotic that persists in the gut or tailor a diet to positively influence human health.
Promising experimental cancer chemotherapy drugs may help knock out another life-threatening disease: tuberculosis (TB).
The microbiome may harbor a gene for drug resistance
University of North Carolina School of Medicine researchers have discovered that a protein called Spt6 facilitates RNA degradation so that cells have just the right amount of RNA for the creation of proteins, a key component to human health and the avoidance of disease.
In a paper published in Nature, a team led by Uli Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University, reports discovery of 10-nanometer, individual, self-assembled dodecahedral structures – 12-sided silica cages that could have applications in mesoscale material assembly, as well as medical diagnosis and therapeutics.
• Chameleons change color by controlling the spacing among nanocrystals on their skin • Northwestern’s nanolaser changes color similarly — by controlling the spacing among metal nanoparticles • By stretching and releasing an elastic substrate, the nanoparticles move further apart or closer together to control color
Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have discovered a new way to harness the potential of a type of spontaneously oxidized MXene thin films, to create nanocomposites that could sense both light and the environment. Previously, such spontaneous oxidation was considered detrimental because it degrades the MXene structure. The research is published in the June 2018 issue of ACS Nano, one of Google Scholar’s top-rated, peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Aim Lab is making the automation of sample tube processing more accessible with their PathFinder 350D Decapper/Sorter and PathFinder 350A Archiver compact robotic workstations.
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