NJC Blog

The February issue of NJC is a part-themed one devoted to Emergent Polyoxometalates and Soft-oxometalates. The NJC team thanks all of the authors for their contributions, as well as the two Guest Editors, Professors Debbie Crans (Colorado State University, USA) and Soumyajit Roy (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, India). Two Perspectives, 4 Letters and 16 research papers illustrate new advances in polyoxometalate-containing systems, with emphasis on those for which non-covalent organization creates new structures with new properties.

Read the Themed Issue Editorial

The inside cover is proposed by Prof. Pavel Lhoták (University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Czech Republic) to illustrate a Paper in which the authors report on the application of organomercurial intermediates for the introduction of aryl moieties using Pd-catalyzed arylation, and for the preparation of the corresponding thiacalixarene dimers, so far unknown in thiacalixarene chemistry.

They show that their reaction enables the introduction of aryl moieties into the meta– or para-positions of the thiacalix[4]arene skeleton, thus leading to unique substitution patterns in thiacalixarene chemistry.

Arylation of thiacalix[4]arenes using organomercurial intermediates
F. Botha, V. Eigner, H. Dvořáková and P. Lhoták.
New J. Chem., 2016, 40, 1104-1110. DOI: 10.1039/C5NJ02427G.

See the full issue table of contents

The May issue of NJC is a part-themed one devoted to Foldamer Chemistry. The NJC team thanks all of the authors for their contribution, as well as the Guest Editor Professor David Aitken (Université Paris Sud, France). This themed issue contains a collection of 3 review articles and 14 research papers, which provide a representative state-of-the-art coverage of the high-level research being carried out in some of the main areas of foldamer research. It is appropriate that these contributions come from research groups spanning four continents, underlining the extent to which foldamers have had an impact on the scientific community.

In their review article, Professor Suga (University of Tokyo, Japan) and his colleagues, who designed the outside cover, present an overview of the structural features of stable macrocyclic peptides and their binding to protein targets. They also show some initial indications of their folding behaviour free in solution, and discuss implications for the future design and functions of foldamers.

Model foldamers: applications and structures of stable macrocyclic peptides identified using in vitro selection
Seino A. K. Jongkees, Christopher J. Hipolito, Joseph M. Rogers and Hiroaki Suga. 
New J. Chem., 2015, 39, 3197-3207. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ01633E.

The work of Professor Pophristic (University of the Sciences, USA) and co-workers is illustrated on the inside cover this month. The authors present a molecular dynamics (MD) study on a series of  helical arylamide oligomers with systematically varying building blocks and linkage types to demonstrate that the conformational characteristics of foldamers, such as the number of units per turn, helical pitch, and pore diameter, can be predicted by MD simulations of small oligomers significantly shorter than the foldamers in question.

Helical arylamide foldamers: structure prediction by molecular dynamics simulations
Zhiwei Liu, Ara M. Abramyan and Vojislava Pophristic.
New J. Chem., 2015, 39, 3229-3240. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ01925C.

Click here to discover the other articles of the May issue.

This month, our five Guest Editors Michel Camplo, Jean-Manuel Raimundo, Laurence Navailles, Mark W. Grinstaff and Philippe Barthélémy present the seven reviews and ten articles which reflect the scope of bioinspired systems in supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology (SupraBio) today in this themed collection.

Jonathan Hill designed this month’s outside cover to present the Perspective review by Dr Katsuhiko Ariga (National Institute for Materials Science, Japan) and his co-workers, and which is part of the themed issue. The authors propose an important paradigm shift in the preparation of functional materials with well-designed nanostructures, moving from a nanotechnological to a nanoarchitectonic approach.

They focus on examples involving drug delivery functions, which are promising applications of bioinspired materials research. In the review the team discusses recent developments involving assemblies of small amphiphilic molecules, polymer micelles and molecular conjugates and give examples of challenging concepts, including inorganic nanostructure design for drug delivery and mechanically controlled drug release. The authors come to the conclusion that bioinspired nanoarchitectonics can be utilized not only in drug delivery applications but also in many research fields, for which they open tremendous possibilities.

Bioinspired nanoarchitectonics as emerging drug delivery systems
Katsuhiko Ariga, Kohsaku Kawakami, Mitsuhiro Ebara, Yohei Kotsuchibashi, Qingmin Ji and Jonathan P. Hill.
New J. Chem., 2014, 38, 5149-5163. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ00864B.

The inside cover illustrates an article written by Dr Hynd Remita (Université Paris-Sud, France) and her colleagues in which they present the synthesis of Au–Cu nanoparticles on a modified TiO₂ support.

In this material the Au–Cu bimetallic nanoparticles, acting as efficient electron scavengers, enhance the photocatalytic activity under UV light. The photocatalytic properties of the modified TiO₂ have also been studied for photodegradation of methyl orange. According to the authors, these materials can also have applications in catalysis.

Radiolytic synthesis of Au–Cu bimetallic nanoparticles supported on TiO2: application in photocatalysis
Zibin Hai, Nadia EL Kolli, Jiafu Chen and Hynd Remita.
New J. Chem., 2014, 38 5279-5286. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ00883A.

We invite you to browse the complete table of contents (68 articles and reviews) of this issue to discover other interesting results.