Archive for April, 2016

Caging chemical weapons

Scientists in the UK have developed supramolecular cages that can trap chemical weapon simulants using the hydrophobic effect.

Organophosphorous chemical weapons, such as sarin and soman, interfere with signals between nerve cells, and have recently been used to deadly effect in places such as Syria. Researchers are therefore trying to develop techniques that detect these chemical weapons in the environment, and destroy them. Read the full article in Chemistry World»


Read the original journal article in ChemComm – it’s open access:
Binding of chemical warfare agent simulants as guests in a coordination cage: contributions to binding and a fluorescence-based response
Christopher G. P. Taylor, Jerico R. Piper and Michael D. Ward 
DOI: 10.1039/C6CC02021F, Communication

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Macrocyle aromaticity switch is all about that base

Researchers have discovered a macrocyle that they can render aromatic, non-aromatic or anti-aromatic by altering the amount of base they add.

 

Meso-aryl expanded porphyrins are usually exceedingly twisted structures due to strong hydrogen bonds within them. Even though they contain many conjugated bonds, this twisted structure means that most of these porphyrins are non-aromatic (to be aromatic, a molecule not only needs conjugation, but must also be flat). Previously scientists had added hydrogen ions to disturb hydrogen bonding in porphyrins, causing them to untwist and become aromatic. Here, a team led by Dongho Kim from Yonsei University, Korea, have flattened a porphyrin by removing hydrogen ions. Read the full article in Chemistry World»


Read the original research in ChemComm – it’s free to read until 20 May 2016:
Multifaceted [36]octaphyrin(1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1): deprotonation-induced switching among nonaromatic, Möbius aromatic, and Hückel antiaromatic species
Won-Young Cha, Takanori Soya, Takayuki Tanaka, Hirotaka Mori, Yongseok Hong, Sangsu Lee, Kyu Hyung Park, Atsuhiro Osuka and Dongho Kim 
DOI: 10.1039/C6CC02051H, Communication

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‘Lightning talk’ prize winner at the University of California Symposium for Chemical Sciences

Congratulations to our ChemComm ‘lightning talk’ prize winner at the University of California Symposium for the Chemical Sciences.
Liban Saleh from the Spokoyny group

The meeting was supported by eight UC departments (UC Davis, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara) representing all areas of chemistry including biological, organic, inorganic, analytical and physical chemistry. The symposium which was held for the first time provided an excellent opportunity for graduate students and postdocs to not only present their work in a multidisciplinary environment, but also take part in different workshops to further their career and establish connections with professionals from industry, government and alternative science jobs.

We would like to congratulate the winner of the best ‘lightning talk’, a short representation of the speaker’s research of about 5 min.  The prize was given to Liban Saleh who is currenlty working as a Post-Doctoral Associate in the group of Alexander Spokoyny (UCLA). His research focuses on inorganic and organomimetic cluster chemistry towards functional materials.

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Fluorescently finding a specific disease marker needle in a biological haystack

The early detection and monitoring of disease is a somewhat recent advancement in healthcare that offers the significant advantage of being able to treat an illness in its initial stages, rather than once it has already manifested itself in the patient. Such a feat requires, however, the ability to see very specific and characteristic disease markers in situ, not unlike the search for a needle in a haystack.
 
Luckily, with the advent of fluorescence (and other) imaging techniques, methods have been developed whereby, in combination with contrast agents that are able to interact with specific molecules in the body, cell chemistry and function can be observed with high sensitivity, and, more importantly, abnormalities in these processes noticed in real time.
 
The art and ultimate success of this fluorescence imaging comes from the design of the contrast agent employed – the probe should be able to selectively recognise and target the relevant disease marker reversibly and under biological conditions. A number of approaches currently exist that meet these requirements, one of which is the boronic acid recognition motif that is able to act as a molecular receptor for the 1,2- and 1,3-diols commonly expressed in carbohydrates and complex glycoproteins. Tony James and his team from the University of Bath, whose own research focuses on such use of boronic acid receptors in the detection of carbohydrates, have summarised the recent and exciting advances in this particular field of selective biological imaging.
 
The well-known and strong affinity of boronic acids for carbohydrates offers a convenient means of detecting commonly expressed markers in diseases including some cancers, as well as Alzheimer’s, autoimmune, and heart diseases. As such, the attachment of this relatively simple chemical moiety to fluorescent small molecular, polymeric or benzoxaborale-based probes offers a diagnostic tool that is able to detect, monitor, and aid in the personalised treatment of such significant and life-changing diseases.
 
This Feature Article convincingly highlights the impact that boronic acid-based fluorescence imaging will ultimately have on a range of important clinical and theranostic practices and their successes.
  
Read this hot ChemComm article in full:
X. Sun, W. Zhai, J. S. Fossey and T. D. James
Chem. Commun., 2016, 52, 3456–3469
DOI: 10.1039/C5CC08633G

About the Writer:
Anthea Blackburn is a guest Web Writer for Chemical Communications. Anthea hails from New Zealand, carried out her graduate studies in mechanostereochemistry under the guidance of Prof. Fraser Stoddart in the US, and has recently relocated to live in London. She is a recent addition to the Econic Technologies team, where she is working on the development of new catalysts for the environmentally beneficial preparation of polycarbonates from CO2.
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