Chemical Communications Blog

New copper complex offers easy access to complex structures

06 May 2011

Chemists working at the University of Cambridge in the UK have discovered a new dicopper complex capable of forming diverse supramolecular structures.

The creation of supramolecular structures for a wide variety of uses has been something that chemists have pursued for years and, as such, new methods to access these structures are constantly sought. Jonathan Nitschke and colleagues are prominent figures in this field and have just reported a new copper complex that self assembles into larger architectures.

The team first assembled the copper complex and then showed they could modified it at two points. This is done either by substitution of solvent molecules with ligands capable of linking multiple complexes or by modifying the imine bonds. Using both these approaches and varying the ligands, it was possible to achieve the templated synthesis of 26- and 52-membered macrocycles. More complex assemblies that utilise this approach are currently being investigated.

Interested in finding out more? Then download Nitschke’s ChemComm article for free today. Also why not check out Dr Nitschke’s mini review and edge article form our sister journal Chemical Science?

Reactivity modulation in container molecules
Boris Breiner, Jack K. Clegg and Jonathan R. Nitschke
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 51-56
DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00329H, Minireview

Selective anion binding by a “Chameleon” capsule with a dynamically reconfigurable exterior
Yana R. Hristova, Maarten M. J. Smulders, Jack K. Clegg, Boris Breiner and Jonathan R. Nitschke
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 638-641
DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00495B, Edge Article

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Call for communications: Artificial Photosynthesis

06 May 2011

By Joanne Thomson.

We are delighted to announce a forthcoming web themed issue:

Artificial Photosynthesis

Guest editor: Andrew Benniston (Newcastle University)

Submission deadline: 15th August 2011 EXTENDED TO 30TH SEPTEMBER!!

We are now welcoming submissions for this web theme, which will be a celebration of current achievements and future perspectives in this exciting field of research. Communications covering all aspects of the following areas are encouraged:

new materials and photocatalysts for solar photochemistry
hydrogen production and water splitting
nitrogen and carbon dioxide functionalisation
light harvesting and energy transfer
electron transfer (tunnelling vs hopping)
coupled proton/electron transfer
long-range electron transport
multi-electron redox processes
bioinspired molecular systems
nanostructures for solar energy usage

All manuscripts will undergo strict peer review and should be very important and conceptually significant in accord with the ChemComm mandate.

Publication of the peer-reviewed articles will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the ChemComm website as a web-based thematic issue, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

Communications for this web theme can be submitted anytime from now until 30th September using our web submission system. Please add the phrase ‘artifical photosynthesis’ in the comments to the editor field.

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New nerve agent sensor to join fight against terror

04 May 2011

By Joanne Thomson.

Graphical abstract: Chemical functionalization of electrodes for detection of gaseous nerve agents with carbon nanotube field-effect transistors A new sensor for detecting nerve agents has been developed by scientists in France.

Organophosphorus (OP) compounds, such as sarin, are extremely neurotoxic compounds that have been used both in the battlefield and in terrorist attacks, including the Tokyo subway attack in 1995.

Current technologies for detecting OPs are not very practical, say Jean-Pierre Simonato (CEA Grenoble) and colleagues, so they’ve developed a new sensor based on carbon nanotube field-effect transistors.

Find out more in Simonato’s recently published ChemComm communication, free to download until 2nd June.

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Anticancer drug found to cause zinc deficiency

04 May 2011

By Emma Shiells, Development Editor.

Researchers now know why cisplatin, a leading cancer drug, causes zinc deficiency in patients

Cisplatin is responsible for abnormally low zinc levels in patients undergoing chemotherapy, say scientists in China and the UK.

Platinum-based compounds, like cisplatin, are the most widely used anticancer drugs in medicine. Research shows that up to 98 per cent of cisplatin binds to blood plasma proteins, particularly albumin. Until now, little has been known about the specific binding sites for platinum on albumin. ‘Since albumin plays a major role in cisplatin metabolism, a better understanding of its interactions with albumin should lead to more effective use of the drug and avoidance or control of side effects,’ says Peter Sadler from the University of Warwick, in the UK.

Cisplatin (structure in the middle) reacts with recombinant human albumin (rHA) (blue and green structures) to create a cisplatin-rHA adduct, which displaces zinc, causing a deficiency

Together with Fuyi Wang’s team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Sadler used mass spectroscopy techniques to reveal that cisplatin reacts with recombinant human albumin (rHA) to create a cisplatin-rHA adduct. The platinum occupies zinc binding sites on the albumin, displacing the zinc, which causes hypozincemia (lack of zinc for metabolic processes) and hyperzincuria (increased zinc in urine).

Would you like to know more? Then read the full story on the Chemistry World website and download the ChemComm communication.

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Meet our author… Martin Blaber

04 May 2011

By Emma Shiells, Development Editor.

From nanobots to nanoplasmonics and SERS; read about one man’s journey into science

Martin Blaber, an enthusiastic surface chemist, working as a post-doctoral researcher for Professor Schatz at Northwestern University, in the US, takes some time away from his research to speak with us…

Blaber’s recent communication, published in ChemComm, reports some of the challenges that come with using nanosphere dimers for surface enhanced ramana spectroscopy (SERS) at long wavelengths: Extending SERS into the infrared with gold nanosphere dimers

Martin Blaber

What initially inspired you to become a scientist?

It was definitely nanotechnology. While at at high school, I got very excited about the possibility of nanobots! Not the malevolent world destroyers, but rather the constructors of sky scrapers and converters of refuse into sports cars etc. The possibilities were endless! I enrolled in a BSc majoring in nanotechnology. After learning that bacteriophages could be programmed to build battery terminals and other wonderful things, I decided that micromachines were best left to biologists and I swapped nanobots for nanoplasmonics, eventually completing a PhD studying alternative materials for nanoplasmonic systems.

What was your motivation behind the work described in your ChemComm article?

Electric Field Enhancement!
SERS can be used to detect tiny amounts of many industrially, scientifically and socially important chemicals. SERS is used to identify counterfeit currency, detect chemical warfare agents and help art historians determine pigments for preservation projects. A major component of the enhancement in SERS is due to the localisation of electric fields around metallic nanoparticles when they are irradiated with light. This phenomenon is known as surface plasmon resonance. Our work involved trying to maximise the electric field enhancement around a dimer of gold nanospheres so that molecules attached to the surface of the spheres would have the largest possible surface enhanced Raman signal. This work grew out of previous studies noting that SERS intensity increased with increasing surface plasmon resonance wavelength. If the maximum field enhancement reaches approximately 10¹², single molecules should be readily detectable. It turns out that in our case, the field enhancement follows a trend that causes the enhancement to “max out” for laser wavelengths of around 700 nm, limiting the average field enhancement to 10⁸.

Why did you choose ChemComm to publish your work?

ChemComm recently published a special issue dedicated to SERS* that I thought would help broaden both the readership and impact of our article.

Where do you see your research heading next?

In this article we investigated a very specific system to determine how the field enhancement scales with surface plasmon resonance wavelength. Trends like this are geometry dependent, and there is such a multitude of other nanoparticle geometries that are readily fabricated via wet chemistry that the possibilities are essentially endless!

What do enjoy doing in your spare time?
Cycling, listening to music, watching movies, spending time with family and friends.

If you could not be a scientist, but could be anything else, what would you be?
I thought I’d like to be an M.D. but clumsiness and scalpels don’t go well together, so I’d settle for being an astronaut.

*ChemComm recently published a SERS web-themed issue, guest edited by Duncan Graham, Zhongqun Tian and Richard Van Duyne. Interested in SERS? Then take a look at our online collection of articles today!

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Titanate cigarette filter

04 May 2011

By Joanne Thomson.

Significant reduction of harmful compounds in tobacco smoke

Cigarette in a hand Chinese researchers have shown for the first time that nanomaterials made from titanium dioxide (TiO₂) can be used in cigarette filters to significantly reduce the amount of harmful chemicals inhaled by smokers. They say it offers a cheaper and safer alternative than using carbon-based nanomaterials and show potential for use in other filtering devices including gas masks and air purification systems.

Current cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, which absorbs some of the toxic and carcinogenic compounds present in tobacco smoke, including tar, nicotine, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and tobacco-specific nitrosamines. In recent years, scientists have attempted to improve standard filters by adding nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes or mesoporous silica, to capture more of these chemicals. But these experimental methods remain expensive and could pose unknown health risks.

Now, Mingdeng Wei’s lab at Fuzhou University in Fujian province, together with colleagues at the Fujian Tobacco Industrial Corporation, Xiamen, have found that titanate nanosheets and nanotubes can filter tobacco smoke. ‘A great range of harmful compounds including tar, nicotine, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, selected carbonyls and phenolic compounds can be reduced efficiently,’ says Wei.

Intrigued? Read the full news story in Chemistry World and download the ChemComm communication.

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ChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship – winner announced

03 May 2011

By Joanne Thomson.

Recognising and rewarding the very best emerging talent within the chemical sciences

On behalf of the ChemComm Editorial Board, I am delighted to announce that Dr Scott Dalgarno (Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, UK) has won the inaugural ChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship.

This annual award recognises an emerging scientist in the early stages of their independent academic career. The Editorial Board commended Dr Dalgarno’s contributions to the field of supramolecular chemistry, in particular the assembly and properties of calixarenes.

Dr Dalgarno will present his award lecture, entitled ‘Metal-Organic Calixarene Assemblies’, at the following locations:

Challenges in Organic Materials & Supramolecular Chemistry (ISACS6), Beijing, China, 2nd-5th September 2011
Chemical Science Symposium, Nanjing, China, 6th September 2011
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, 8th September 2011

For more details about these lectures, please contact ChemComm Editor, Robert Eagling.

To find out more about Dr Dalgarno’s research, read these recent ChemComm articles:
Calix[4]arene supported clusters: a dimer of [MnIIIMnII] dimers
Stephanie M. Taylor, Ruaraidh D. McIntosh, Christine M. Beavers, Simon J. Teat, Stergios Piligkos, Scott J. Dalgarno and Euan K. Brechin, Chem. Commun., 2011, 47, 1440-1442

Calixarene supported enneanuclear Cu(II) clusters
Georgios Karotsis, Stuart Kennedy, Scott J. Dalgarno and Euan K. Brechin, Chem. Commun., 2010, 46, 3884-3886

Magnetism in metal–organic capsules
Jerry L. Atwood, Euan K. Brechin, Scott J. Dalgarno, Ross Inglis, Leigh F. Jones, Andrew Mossine, Martin J. Paterson, Nicholas P. Power and Simon J. Teat, Chem. Commun., 2010, 46, 3484-3486

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Antonio Echavarren joins the ChemComm Editorial Board

18 Apr 2011

By Joanne Thomson.

Editorial Office for organic chemistry and catalysis now open for submissions

On behalf of the ChemComm Editorial Board, I am delighted to welcome Professor Antonio Echavarren as the new ChemComm Associate Editor for organic chemistry and catalysis.

Professor Echavarren is Group Leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in Tarragona, Spain. His research focuses on developing new catalytic methods based on the organometallic chemistry of transition metals as well as synthesing natural products and polyarenes.

Professor Echavarren’s editorial office is now open for submissions, welcoming urgent communications highlighting the latest advances in organic chemistry and catalysis.

Find out more about Professor Echavarren’s research on gold catalysis by reading these exciting articles:

A multipurpose gold(I) precatalyst
Mihai Raducan, Carles Rodríguez-Escrich, Xacobe C. Cambeiro, Eduardo C. Escudero-Adán, Miquel A. Pericàs and Antonio M. Echavarren, Chem. Commun., 2011, 47, 4893-4895

Mechanism of the gold-catalyzed cyclopropanation of alkenes with 1,6-enynes
Patricia Pérez-Galán, Elena Herrero-Gómez, Daniel T. Hog, Nolwenn J. A. Martin, Feliu Maseras and Antonio M. Echavarren, Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 141-149

Are you an organic chemist based in North America? Submit your research to Michael Krische, ChemComm North American Associate Editor for organic chemistry.

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Antibody acts as rudder to steer DNA into a pore

14 Apr 2011

By Joanne Thomson.

Scientists from China and Canada have studied the effect of a DNA-binding antigen-binding fragment (Fab) of an antibody on the translocation of a DNA polymer. Both poly(dT)₄₅:Fab HED10 and poly(dT)₄₅ produce unique double step current traces, which were analysed in detail to get information about the translocation events.

The results have important implications for understanding the translocation behaviour of polymers, which could help to develop nanopore biosensors with high sensitivity and specificity, says Yitao Long, from East China University of Science and Technology. In particular, the addition of polymer-binding antibodies may facilitate the use of nanopores in sequencing technologies.

The presence of the FAB HED10 decreases the time of the first level of the step but not the second. The Fab appears to behave as a rudder, which significantly decreases the energy barrier for poly(dT)₄₅ translocation. A more rigid or extended conformation of poly(dT)₄₅ would decrease the time required to find the entrance to the narrow constriction in the pore. The entropic barrier required to linearise the DNA strand may be the dominant contribution to the entire energy barrier.

Find out more by downloading the communication, recently published in ChemComm.

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Chemical Communications Blog

New copper complex offers easy access to complex structures

Call for communications: Artificial Photosynthesis

New nerve agent sensor to join fight against terror

Anticancer drug found to cause zinc deficiency

Meet our author… Martin Blaber

Titanate cigarette filter

ChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship – winner announced

Antonio Echavarren joins the ChemComm Editorial Board

Antibody acts as rudder to steer DNA into a pore

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