Reactive Chemistry Blog

Algae burn for you

David Bradley — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:36:27 +0000

Finding sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels that would both solve the problem of dwindling supplies of oil and cut the net carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles running on hydrocarbon fuels is a cause high on the environmental agenda. The use of biomass as a source for fuels compounds has benefits, but the setting aside of the great tracts of land required to “grow” adequate crops for conversion into biodiesel detracts from a parallel agenda of major concern: land use and food security.

Now, Johannes Lercher and his colleagues, Baoxiang Peng, Yuan Yao, Chen Zhao, at the Technische Universität München have developed a new catalytic process that might offer a solution to both problems. Their catalyst can efficiently convert biomass, or more properly biopetroleum, generated by microalgae into diesel fuels for use in suitable vehicles.

David Bradley on SpectroscopyNOW.com.

Drugs used to overcome cancer may also combat antibiotic resistance: McMaster researchers

Robert Slinn — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:00:33 +0000

Drugs used to overcome cancer may also combat antibiotic resistance: McMaster researchers – The pharmaceutical sector has made a big investment in targeting kinases proteins, so there are a lot of compounds and drugs out there that, although they were designed to overcome cancer, they can in fact be looked at with fresh eyes and maybe repurposed to address the problem of antibiotic resistance.

One-pot synthesis creates anticancer candidates

Robert Slinn — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:32:33 +0000

One-pot synthesis creates anticancer candidates – Researchers in Germany have developed a simple, rapid and high-yielding cascade synthesis of a collection of polycyclic compounds that resemble indole alkaloid natural products and which interfere with cell division. The compounds could be promising new anticancer drug candidates.

First electronic optical fibers with hydrogenated amorphous silicon are developed

Robert Slinn — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 07:32:33 +0000

First electronic optical fibers with hydrogenated amorphous silicon are developed – A new chemical technique for depositing a non-crystalline form of silicon into the long, ultra-thin pores of optical fibers has been developed by an international team of scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom. The technique, which is the first of its kind to use high-pressure chemistry for making well-developed films and wires of this particular kind of silicon semiconductor, will help scientists to make more-efficient and more-flexible optical fibers.

MSU chemists solve 84-year-old theory

Robert Slinn — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:38:33 +0000

MSU chemists become the first to solve an 84-year-old theory – The same principle that causes figure skaters to spin faster as they draw their arms into their bodies has now been used by Michigan State University researchers to understand how molecules move energy around following the absorption of light. In the current issue of Science, MSU chemist Jim McCusker demonstrates for the first time the effect is real and also suggests how scientists could use it to control and predict chemical reaction pathways in general.

New synthetic molecules treat autoimmune disease in mice

Robert Slinn — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:02:33 +0000

New synthetic molecules treat autoimmune disease in mice – A team of Weizmann Institute scientists has turned the tables on an autoimmune disease. In such diseases, including Crohn's and rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's tissues. But the scientists managed to trick the immune systems of mice into targeting one of the body's players in autoimmune processes, an enzyme known as MMP9. The results of their research appear today in Nature Medicine.

Scientists Fixate on Ric-8 to Understand Trafficking of Popular Drug Receptor Targets

Robert Slinn — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:32:33 +0000

Scientists Fixate on Ric-8 to Understand Trafficking of Popular Drug Receptor Targets – Half the drugs used today target a single class of proteins – and now scientists have identified an important molecular player critical to the proper workings of those proteins critical to our health. What you see, what you smell, how you feel – molecules known as G-protein coupled receptors and their prime targets, G proteins, are key to those and many other processes that are ubiquitous in our bodies, and Ric-8 plays a vital role.

Record reaction cascade yields cancer drug candidate

Robert Slinn — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:52:33 +0000

Record reaction cascade yields cancer drug candidate – New active substances can be produced quickly and efficiently with the help of reaction cascades. Once set in motion, these processes lead to the desired end product via a series of intermediate steps which take place in one go in a single reaction vessel. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund have achieved a new world record in cascade synthesis: they succeeded in synthesising complex biologically active substances, Centrocountins, in twelve successive steps. These substances inhibit cell division and could provide new options for the development of antitumour drugs.

The TNA world that came before the RNA one

Robert Slinn — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:07:33 +0000

The TNA world that came before the RNA one – The question of how non-living chemicals emerged from the so-called primordial soup to give rise to life on Earth is one of the most intriguing in science. Finding an answer might not only help explain our origins but could give us important clues as to that other intriguing question of whether or not we are alone in the universe. Once it was recognised that DNA is key to the molecular self-replication that underpins life, chemists have sought to understand the origins of this double-helical molecule in that primordial age. It was quickly assumed that RNA, a single-stranded nucleic acid, may have been the precursor genetic material to DNA, and the RNA world hypothesis was born. But what gave rise to RNA? Chemists in the US are starting to home in on another nucleic acid, TNA: threose nucleic acid.

Notre Dame researchers demonstrate new DNA detection technique

Robert Slinn — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:32:33 +0000

Notre Dame researchers demonstrate new DNA detection technique – A team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame have demonstrated a novel DNA detection method that could prove suitable for many real-world applications. Physicists Carol Tanner and Steven Ruggiero led the team in the application of a new technique called laser transmission spectroscopy (LTS). LTS is capable of rapidly determining the size, shape and number of nanoparticles in suspension. In a new paper appearing in the international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication PLoS ONE, the team describes how they applied LTS as a novel method for detecting species-specific DNA where the presence of one invasive species was differentiated from a closely related invasive sister species.