NJC Blog

We are pleased to present a selection of our authors of the May issue of NJC. We thank each of them for accepting our invitation and having kindly taken some of their time to answer a few questions for us.

Our first author is Oana R. Luca who is a Graduate Student at Yale University (USA) in the group of Prof. Robert H. Crabtree. Her current research interests are mainly focused on electrocatalysis, more specifically the production and storage of H₂. In her NJC paper, Oana and co-workers report on a Ni(II) complex with a redox-active pincer ligand which reduces protons effectively at a low overpotential in aqueous acidic conditions. A combined experimental and computational study provides mechanistic insights into an unusual putative catalytic cycle.

When asked what led to the publication of this article at NJC, Oana responds: “NJC is a forum for cutting-edge work in the chemical sciences”.

Out of the lab, Oana enjoys spending time with her friends, playing chess, reading and playing guitar. If Oana could not be a scientist, she would probably be a baker.

A tridentate Nickel pincer for aqueous electrocatalytic hydrogen production by Oana R. Luca, Steven J. Konezny, James D. Blakemore, Dominic M. Colosi, Shubhro Saha, Gary W. Brudvig, Victor S. Batista and Robert H. Crabtree, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 1149-1152; DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ20912H.

Our next author is Mariano Venanzi, Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy). Mariano’s research interests focus on biotechnology, peptide materials and spectroscopy of biological molecules.

In this issue of NJC, Mariano has authored the article Glucosylated steroid-porphyrins as new tools for nanotechnology applications by R. Lettieri, D. Monti, Karel Zelenka, Tomáš Trnka, Pavel Drašar and M. Venanzi, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 1246-1254; DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ20982A. “Porphyrins are versatile scaffolds that can be suitably engineered  for applications in different environments. The paper shows how the unique self-assembly properties of derivatized porphyrins can be exploited for forming complex supramolecular structures (mesoscopic aggregates, multilayer films, inclusion complexes in liposomes)”, explains Mariano who chooses NJC for publication of this article as “NJC is an authoritative journal edited by a prominent chemical society with a large readership”.

In his free time, Mariano loves spending time running, trekking and listening to music. If Mariano was not a scientist, he would have been a historian or a mystery fiction author.

Mark Moloney is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford (UK).

His current research interest is synthetic organic chemistry in the areas of natural products, drug development and surface science.

In this NJC issue’s paper, Mark and co-workers describes the culmination of a large multidisciplinary project to demonstrate that the surface modification of materials can be used to control protein binding, and that this behaviour can be correlated with surface chemistry and with modern cheminformatic descriptors more normally used in the drug discovery process.

Post-Polymerisation Modification of Surface Chemical Functionality and its Effect on Protein Binding by Cleo Choong, J. S. Foord, Jon-Paul Griffiths, Emily M. Parker, Luo Baiwen, Meghali Bora and Mark G. Moloney, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 1187-1200; DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ00002D.

“NJC was chosen as a highly attractive home for this work because of its wide readership and the fact that it encourages genuinely interdisciplinary work.”

Walking, swimming and gardening are Mark’s favourite activities. If he could not be a scientist, Mark would love to run a small-holding specialising in rare animal breeds.

Closing this month’s author selection, Yuxin Zhao is PhD student at the Griffith University (Australia).

His current research interest are metal-based nanomaterials, carbon-based nanocomposites and dye-sensitized solar cells. He has authored in this NJC issue the paper A Flexible Chemical Vapor Deposition Method to Synthesize Copper@Carbon Core-shell Structured Nanowires and Study of Their Structural Electrical Properties by Yuxin Zhao, Juan Wang, Ying Zhang, Yanpeng Li and Zifeng Yan, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 1255-1264; DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ40036G.

Out of the lab, Yuxin’s favorite activity is Chinese traditional painting and if he was not a scientist, he would be an artist in oriental traditional painting.

We are pleased to present a selection of our authors of the January issue of NJC. We thank each of them for accepting our invitation and having kindly taken some of their time to answer a few questions for us.

Our first author is Aharon Gendanken who is Professor of Chemistry at the Bar-Ilan University (Ramat-Gan, Israel). His current research interests are focused on nanochemistry. Sonochemistry is a method used in Aharon’s laboratory for synthesizing nanomaterials. One of the unique additional properties of the use of ultrasonic waves is the ability to create microspheres of proteins, starch, Chitosan, DNA and RNA in a one step short process. In his NJC paper, Aharon and co-workers examined whether they can apply this method to the preparation of Graphene Oxide spheres? The answer is yes, and the manuscript presents the technique.

“I think that NJC is treating very fairly papers that are submitted to the journal for publication. I have never experienced that the editors have rejected my paper before the refereeing process. After all the Editors in Chief and Assoc. Editors of a journal are great experts in science but the question is how wide is their knowledge? And many of their rejection are very questionable.”, says Aharon.

Outside of the lab, Aharon enjoys listening to Classical Music, and watching Sport on TV. He used to play soccer until 15 months ago and then hanged his shoes. If he could not be a scientific researcher, he would be a music conductor.

Graphene oxide microspheres prepared by a simple, one-step ultrasonication method by Matias Sametband, Ulyana Shimanovich and Aharon Gedanken, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 36-39; DOI: 10.1039/C1NJ20738E, Letter.

Our next author is Cristina Silva Pereira, Assistant researcher at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, (Lisbon, Portugal). Cristina’s research interests are centred on the understanding of fungal response to critical anthropogenic stresses, such as ionic liquids, and their potential utility for designing novel and environmentally friendly biotechnological processes.

In this issue of NJC, Cristina has authored the article Unravelling the mechanism of toxicity of alkyltributylphosphonium chlorides in Aspergillus nidulans conidia by Marija Petkovic, Diego O. Hartmann, Gabriela Adamová, Kenneth R. Seddon, Luís Paulo N. Rebelo and Cristina Silva Pereira, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 56-63; DOI: 10.1039/C1NJ20470J, Paper. “A rapid method to detect the effects of industrially important ionic liquids in cellular boundaries of filamentous fungi conidia is proposed. After exposure to quaternary phosphonium ionic liquids carrying long alkyl substituents, severe membrane damage was almost immediately observed; this is known as baseline toxicity and exonerates the involvement of programmed cell death. ”, explains Cristina who chooses NJC for publication of this article as the NJC renders high interest for publishing multidisciplinary studies, with a chemical core, that cross borders of pure disciplines.

In her free time, Cristina loves spending time writing, reading and travelling to remote and uninhabited locations. If she could not be a scientist, she will be a writer.

Closing this month’s author selection, Mike Coogan is Senior lecturer at the Cardiff University UK (Cardiff, United Kingdom).

His current research interest is inorganic chemistry, specialising in the application of metal complexes in cell imaging and he has authored in this NJC issue the paper The importance of cellular localisation of probes: synthesis, photophysical properties, DNA interactions and cellular imaging properties of rhenium dppz complexes with known cellular localisation vectors by Flora L. Thorp-Greenwood, Michael P. Coogan, Lallan Mishra, Niraj Kumari, Geeta Rai and Srikrishna Saripella, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 64-72; DOI: 10.1039/C1NJ20662A, Paper.

This paper shows that when designing probes for cell imaging the cellular uptake and localisation are vital parameters, which are often overlooked in favour of the purely analytical chemists’ approach of designing responsive molecules. They showed that rhenium dppz complexes which are known to act as DNA luminescence sensors can be tuned to highlight oligonucleotides in particular cell compartments (e.g. mitochondria) by tuning their localisation properties with additional ligands.

“I see NJC as a natural home for imaging studies which by their nature combine synthetic, analytical and biological chemistry, and so fit well with the interdisciplinary mission of this journal.”, says Mike.

Out of the lab, Mike’s favorite activity is walking in the hills. If he could not be a scientist, Mike will probably run a campsite – all the other options him though of such as naturalist are really scientists anyway and he don’t think you can be a professional hill-walker!

We are pleased to present a selection of our authors of the September issue of NJC. We thank each of them for accepting our invitation and having kindly taken some of their time to answer a few questions for us.

Our first author is Frank Marken who is Professor at the University of Bath (UK). His current research interests are mainly focused on electrochemical processes and their applications. Frank and co-workers are interested in complex interfaces and they were looking for ways of bringing gases into close contact to electrode surfaces. In 2010, they started investigating salt-electrode contacts and based on the initial progress, they decided to explore different types of electrode processes including catalytic processes under these “salt conditions” which is the topic of their NJC paper. Frank declares to be lucky to have a very talented visitor, Fengjie Xia from Wuhan University of Technology, working on this topic and producing these results.

The fact that the work is fundamental and exploratory in character, that it could benefit from recognition by a wider community of chemist and that NJC provides a very good platform and ensures high levels of citations was Frank’s motivation behind his submission to the journal.

Outside of the lab, Frank enjoys swimming. If he could not be a scientific researcher, he would be an engineer.

Electrode processes at gas|salt|Pd nanoparticle|glassy carbon electrode contacts: salt effects on the oxidation of formic acid vapor and the oxidation of hydrogen by Fengjie Xia, Sara E. C. Dale, Richard A. Webster, Mu Pan, Shichun Mu, Shik Chi Tsang, John M. Mitchels and Frank Marken New J. Chem., 2011, 35, 1855-1860, DOI: 10.1039/C1NJ20421A.

Our next author is Lee Chia-Hung , Assistant Professor of Life Science at the National Dong Hwa University (Taiwan). He’s research interests focus on the biocatalytic reactions in the confined nanospaces of mesoporous silica materials and mesoporous silica nanoparticles for biomedical applications.

In this issue of NJC, he has authored the article Site-specific immobilization of cytochrome c on mesoporous silica through metal affinity adsorption to enhance activity and stability by Shih-Hsun Cheng, Kun-Che Kao, Wei-Neng Liao, Li-Ming Chen, Chung-Yuan Mou and Chia-Hung Lee New J. Chem., 2011, 35, 1809-1816, DOI: 10.1039/C1NJ20255C. “A rapid and highly efficient approach to immobilize a cysteine-containing enzyme through metal affinity interactions, which can both protect the protein folding and control the orientation to optimize the stability and catalytic activity. The immobilization of cyt c through this approach can provide a correct orientation of the catalytic center, where the active site can easily approach the substrate molecules”, explains Chia-Hung who chooses NJC for the publication of this article due to the journal’s high quality.

In his free time, Chia-Hung loves spending time traveling to visit new places because he can find many new things and try many new foods. In addition, his wife and he like to stroll in the department store or local bookstore with their child on weekends.

Chia-Hung usually cook chemical reactions in his lab. If he could not be a scientist, maybe he became a chief to create many delicious Chinese foods for foreigners.

Closing this month’s authors selection, David Farrusseng is Researcher at IRCELYON, University of Lyon (France).

His current research interests are focused on the design of materials for original catalytic & separation processes and on the development of high throughput approaches. More recently, he has explored the application of Metal-Organic Frameworks in catalysis.

In this NJC issue paper, David and co-workers report the synthesis of a multi-dimensional combinatorial library of functionalized MOFs. The impact of the grafting rate between the porous volumes of 1D and 3D channeled structures is also compared. “Metal-Organic Frameworks are fascinating crystalline porous Materials. The development of functionalization methods for decorating their pore will lead to breakthroughs in Applied Chemistry” says David.

Combinatorial synthesis of metal–organic frameworks libraries by click-chemistry by Marie Savonnet, Emanuel Kockrick, Aurélie Camarata, Delphine Bazer-Bachi, Nicolas Bats, Vincent Lecocq, Catherine Pinel and David Farrusseng, New J. Chem., 2011, 35, 1892-1897, DOI: 10.1039/C1NJ20350A.

“NJC publishes original multi-disciplinary articles on a fair basis and very rapidly. What can I ask for more?”

Out of the lab, David like to “escape” by bike in the hilly Beaujolais area and then to make some stops in beautiful wineries to enjoy the local production.

When asked if he could not be a scientist but could be anything else what he would be? David answers that being a young boy, at the time of the first computers; he did recreate the first video games, such as Tetris and Pacman. He was coding nights and days. Later at the university, he was told that there was nothing good to expect for a carrier in informatics. It was 2 years before the Internet first steps…

Thanks to all of you, and see you next month for more!

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