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RSC Advances Popular Advances – an Interview with Takashi Morii

07 Oct 2022

We are very pleased to introduce Professor Takashi Morii, who is the corresponding author of the RSC Advances article, A two-step screening to optimize the signal response of an auto-fluorescent protein-based biosensor. The manuscript was well received by reviewers and was handpicked by our reviewers and handling editors to be part of our Popular Advances collection.

Professor Mori told us more about the work that went into this article and what he hopes to achieve in the future. You can explore other articles in our 2022 Popular Advances online collection here.

Meet the author:

Takashi Morii was born in 1959 in Hyogo, Japan. He studied Chemistry at Kyoto University (B. Eng., 1982, Ph.D. 1988) with Prof. T. Matsuura and Prof. I. Saito. He conducted postdoctoral research with Prof. J. K. Barton at Columbia University and California Institute of Technology. In 1992, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor at Kyoto Institute of Technology and subsequently moved to Institute for Chemical Research at Kyoto University. In 1998, he moved to Institute of Advanced Energy, Kyoto University, where he was promoted to Professor in 2005.

Could you briefly explain the focus of your article to the non-specialist (in one or two sentences only) and why it is of current interest?

Construction of an auto-fluorescent protein (AFP)-based biosensor consisting of a recognition, or a reaction, module and AFP often encounters difficulty owing to the lack of structural information for the recognition module and requirement of laborious tasks for functional optimization. This study describes a two-step screening strategy that allows facile optimization of the optical response of AFP-based biosensor for nitric oxide (NO), which is also applicable for many types of AFP-based biosensors.

How big an impact could your results potentially have?

Our two-step, first in silico and second in vitro, screening strategy provides a convenient and high-throughput screening method for the optimization of the signal response of AFP-based biosensors. Especially, our strategy has an advantage for cases when the detailed information on the structural change of recognition module is not available. AFP-based biosensors are quite useful in visualizing the dynamics of cellular important factors because of their suitability for high spatiotemporal resolution and long-time imaging. Our strategy would accelerate the development of various types of biosensors for the factors of interest in the cell.

Could you explain the motivation behind this study?

We have previously constructed a fusion of a segment of the putative NO-sensing module of the TRPC5 channel with enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) to evaluate this putative NO-induced structural change in TRPC5. While the construct successfully detected the putative structural change by the reaction with NO as a change in the fluorescence intensity ratio of EGFP, the observed response was quite weak. We considered that the TRPC5 loop-EGFP construct could be converted to a cellular NO sensor by enhancing its response through the mutation and screening. In addition, developing a general strategy to construct AFP-based biosensors that visualize various kinds of second messengers would promote further investigation of signal transduction.

In your opinion, what are the key design considerations for your study?

An AFP-based biosensor is designed by conjugating an appropriate recognition or reaction module for a given target to an AFP transduction module. Structural changes in the recognition module induced by the recognition/reaction event are transduced to a change of fluorescence signal of AFP. To obtain usable AFP-based biosensors, many sensor candidates must be constructed and evaluated their responses, which are time consuming and required laborious tasks. We consider that a screening to select candidates showing larger structural changes at the reaction module upon the reaction based on in silico simulation in the first step would reduce these tasks. Structural change of the reaction modules of candidates are evaluated by root-mean-square-deviation (RMSD) of the coordinates for the backbone of reaction module between before and after the reaction based on in silico simulation.

Which part of the work towards this paper proved to be most challenging?

The most challenging part of this work is whether the in silico screening evaluated by using the RMSD values could select candidates with reasonable signal responses because it is very difficult to predict the exact structural change of candidates upon the reaction in silico. Fortunately, the second in vitro screening revealed that RMSD values could successfully provide indexes for the signal response of the candidates, although large RMSD values did not always correspond to the large signal response.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment?

It was quite exciting to find that the sensor candidates from the first in silico screening showed enhanced signals in the in vitro second screening. It was also exciting to confirm that a construct obtained from the two-step screening showed a reasonable signal response in living mammalian cells. This result demonstrated that our screening strategy can be applied to enhance the signal response sufficient for cellular applications.

What is the next step? What work is planned?

The reaction module of selected AFP-based biosensor changes its structure upon formation of a disulphide bond to emit the signal. We anticipated a certain selectivity for the disulphide bond formation by NO, but apparently the selected AFP-based biosensor showed similar response to NO and H₂O₂. The next step is to develop a convenient strategy to install a selectivity to NO and H₂O₂ on the AFP-based biosensor selected in this work.

A two-step screening to optimize the signal response of an auto-fluorescent protein-based biosensor

Shunsuke Tajima,^a Eiji Nakata,^a Reiko Sakaguchi,^b Masayuki Saimura,^a Yasuo Mori^c and Takashi Morii^*a

RSC Adv., 2022,12, 15407-15419

Submit to RSC Advances today! Check out our author guidelines for information on our article types or find out more about the advantages of publishing in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal.

Keep up to date with our latest Popular Advances, Reviews, Collections & more by following us on Twitter. You can also keep informed by signing up to our E-Alerts.

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July 2022 Popular Advances Articles

01 Sep 2022

Welcome to July’s Popular Advances article round up!

Every month we update our 2022 RSC Advances Popular Advances Article Collection to showcase all of the articles selected by our reviewers and handling editors as Popular Advances in 2022. Don’t forget to come back next month to check out our latest Popular articles.

We hope you enjoy reading and as always, all of our articles are open access so you can easily share your favourites online and with your colleagues.

Explore the full collection!

Theoretical investigation of the optoelectronic response of highly correlated Cu3P photocatalyst,
Haseeb Ahmad, Ali Rauf and Shoaib Muhammad, RSC Adv., 2022,12, 20721-20726, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2RA02472A

Phenoxy pendant isatins as potent α-glucosidase inhibitors: reciprocal carbonyl⋯carbonyl interactions, antiparallel π⋯π stacking driven solid state self-assembly and biological evaluation,
Saba Mehreen, Mehwash Zia, Ajmal Khan, Javid Hussain, Saeed Ullah, Muhammad U. Anwar, Ahmed Al-Harrasi and Muhammad Moazzam Naseer, RSC Adv., 2022,12, 20919-20928, https://doi.org/10.1039/D2RA03307K

Submit to RSC Advances today! Check out our author guidelines for information on our article types or find out more about the advantages of publishing in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal.

Keep up to date with our latest Popular Advances articles, Reviews, Collections & more by following us on Twitter. You can also keep informed by signing up to our E-Alerts.

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July 2022 RSC Advances Review Articles

01 Sep 2022

Welcome to July’s Review round up!

Every month we update our 2022 Reviews in RSC Advances collection to showcase all of the review articles published in RSC Advances in 2022. Don’t forget to come back next month to check out our latest reviews.

We hope you enjoy reading and as always, all of our articles are open access so you can easily share your favourites online and with your colleagues.

Explore the full collection!

Browse a selection of our July reviews below:

MXenes and their nanocomposites for biosensing applications , Zaheer Ud Din Babar, Bartolomeo Della Ventura, Raffaele Velotta and Vincenzo Iannotti, RSC Adv., 2022,12, 19590-19610, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2RA02985E

Synthesis of MoS2-based nanostructures and their applications in rechargeable ion batteries, catalysts and gas sensors: a review, Wei Sun, Yaofang Zhang, Weimin Kang, Nanping Deng, Xiaoxiao Wang, Xiaoying Kang, Zirui Yan, Yingwen Pan and Jian Ni, RSC Adv., 2022,12, 19512-19527, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2RA01532C

Inhibitory potential of nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur containing heterocyclic scaffolds against acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase, Rami J. Obaid, Nafeesa Naeem, Ehsan Ullah Mughal, Munirah M. Al-Rooqi, Amina Sadiq, Rabab S. Jassas, Ziad Moussa and Saleh A. Ahmed, RSC Adv., 2022,12, 19764-19855, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2RA03081K

Synchrotron radiation based X-ray techniques for analysis of cathodes in Li rechargeable batteries
Jitendra Pal Singh, Anil Kumar Paidi, Keun Hwa Chae, Sangsul Lee and Docheon Ahn, RSC Adv., 2022,12, 20360-20378, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2RA01250B

Nanostructured silicate catalysts for environmentally benign Strecker-type reactions: status quo and quo vadis, Vladimir V. Kouznetsov and José G. Hernández, RSC Adv., 2022,12, 20807-20828, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2RA03102G

Submit to RSC Advances today! Check out our author guidelines for information on our article types or find out more about the advantages of publishing in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal.

Keep up to date with our latest HOT articles, Reviews, Collections & more by following us on Twitter. You can also keep informed by signing up to our E-Alerts.

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RSC Advances welcomes two new Associate Editors: Shannon Biros and Giulia Fiorani

01 Sep 2022

The RSC Advances team is excited to welcome Professor Shannon Biros, Grand Valley State University, Michigan, USA and Professor Giulia Fiorani, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy as our newest Associate Editors.

Shannon Biros, Professor of Chemistry, Grand Valley State University, USA

Research areas: x-ray crystallography, supramolecular chemistry, f-element coordination chemistry, actinide and lanthanide separation chemistry

Shannon M. Biros joined the faculty of GVSU as an Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry in the fall of 2008. She was a graduate of GVSU, receiving her BA in chemistry and BS in biomedical sciences in 2001. From there she moved to San Diego to pursue a PhD in chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute under the direction of Professor Julius Rebek, Jr. Following the completion of her thesis, Shannon spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley as a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Professor Kenneth N. Raymond investigating the guest binding properties of a series of supramolecular metal-ligand clusters. She is currently in her thirteenth year as a faculty member at GVSU, and maintains an active research group of undergraduate students.

Browse a selection of Shannon’s RSC publications:

Synthesis of diphenyl-(2-thienyl)phosphine, its chalcogenide derivatives and a series of novel complexes of lanthanide nitrates and triflates, Troy Luster, Hannah J. Van de Roovaart, Kyle J. Korman, Georgia G. Sands, Kylie M. Dunn, Anthony Spyker, Richard J. Staples, Shannon M. Biros and John E. Bender, Dalton Trans., 2022,51, 9103-9115, https://doi.org/10.1039/D2DT01570F

A complex with nitrogen single, double, and triple bonds to the same chromium atom: synthesis, structure, and reactivity, Evan P. Beaumier, Brennan S. Billow, Amrendra K. Singh, Shannon M. Biros and Aaron L. Odom, Chem. Sci., 2016,7, 2532-2536, https://doi.org/10.1039/C5SC04608D

Supramolecular ligands for the extraction of lanthanide and actinide ions, Eric J. Werner and Shannon M. Biros, Org. Chem. Front., 2019,6, 2067-2094, https://doi.org/10.1039/C9QO00242A

Giulia Fiorani, Associate Professor, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy

Research areas: Green chemistry, Organic synthesis, Heterogeneous catalysis (green chemistry), Organic chemistry, Sustainable synthesis, biodegradable/biocompatible polymers, degradation of polymers

Giulia Fiorani received her BSc and MSc in Chemical Sciences from the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. In 2010, she obtained her PhD in Chemical Sciences and Technologies from the same university, working on Ionic Liquids, under the supervision of Prof. Valeria Conte. From 2010 to 2012 Giulia was a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant at the University of Padua, working on hybrid polyoxometalates. She then moved to Ca’ Foscari University of Venice as a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant to work on linear organic carbonates. From March 2016 until October 2017, Giulia was a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant in polymer chemistry and polymerization catalysis under the supervision of Prof. Charlotte K. Williams, initially at Imperial College London and then at the University of Oxford. Since November 2017, Giulia has been a fixed-term Assistant Professor, and later a tenure-track Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

In May 2015, she was shortlisted among the ten highly commended scientists for the ISGC Young Researcher Award. She was the recipient of the 2017 Junior Prize for Research on “Organic Chemistry for Environment, Energy and Nanoscience” awarded by the Organic Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society and of the “Outstanding Young Researcher Award awardee” awarded by the International Scientific Committee of ICCDU XV, 5-7 July 2017, Shanghai (CN).

Giulia’s research interests focus on the development of novel synthetic and catalytic methodologies for the preparation of renewable-based molecules and materials. Bio-based synthons, including terpenes and lignocellulosic biomass derived platform chemicals, are employed as starting materials for the preparation of functional molecules and/or monomers for (co)-polymers synthesis. These transformations occur via sustainable catalytic processes, including direct CO₂ activation, tandem and/or one-pot processes, and use of continuous flow to improve the overall selectivity of synthetic organic chemistry processes.

Browse a selection of Giulia’s RSC publications:

Phosphonium salts and P-ylides, G. Fiorani, A. Perosa and M. Selva, From the book: Organophosphorus Chemistry: Volume 50, 2021, 50, 179-242, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/9781839163814-00179

Dimethyl carbonate: a versatile reagent for a sustainable valorization of renewables, G. Fiorani, A. Perosa and M. Selva, Green Chem., 2018,20, 288-322, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C7GC02118F

Submit your research or reviews to Professor Biros and Professor Fiorani, they will be delighted to receive them! See our author guidelines for information on our article types or find out more about the advantages of publishing in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal.

Keep up to date with our latest HOT articles, Reviews, Collections & more by following us on Twitter. You can also keep informed by signing up to our E-Alerts.

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Advancing with Advances – How to Publish and not Perish (part 3)

11 Aug 2022

Interviews with Associate Editors

Our Associate Editors offer some Advice

At RSC Advances we have a team of seventy hard working Associate Editors who handle your manuscript, from initial assessment to their final decision.

To gain more insight into the world of peer-review, we have asked our Associate Editors two questions:

What are your most common reasons for rejecting a manuscript without review?
What would be your best piece of advice to a submitting author?

Here are what some of our Associate Editors had to say:

Professor Brenno A.D. Neto, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil

1. What are your most common reasons for rejecting a manuscript without review?

I see two main reasons to deny an article for publication without peer-review. The first reason is because it actually lacks the expected advance/impact in the subject of the submitted work; and it is not rare to see these manuscripts. The second reason is even more common in those rejected manuscripts I handle as an Editor, that is, when the expected characterizations of the claimed structures are missing or are incomplete. Several mistakes could be avoided with proper characterizations.

2. What would be your best piece of advice to a submitting author?

Be clear and objective when you write the cover letter. Always check if you are presenting/submitting a well-composed manuscript. This is indeed very important! Also, remember that Science should speak by itself, thus the use of self-promoting words (or buzzwords) in general only backfires on authors.

Dr. Donna Arnold, University of Kent, UK

1. What are your most common reasons for rejecting a manuscript without review?

One of the most common reasons I reject manuscripts at prescreen (reject without peer review) is for lack of novelty and impact. This is often that there is no cover letter stating what the novelty and impact of the work is. The second reason is usually due to scope. It is important to consider if RSC Advances is the right place for the work. Again this is something which can be addressed in a good cover letter!

2. What is the best piece of advice you could give a submitting author?

A couple of pieces of advice beyond a good cover letter. Authors need to consider if RSC is the right place for the work they want to share. With any manuscript the most important thing for the research is for the manuscript to reach the right audience. Sometimes it is tempting to make these decisions based on metrics rather than where the work might reach the best audience. RSC Advances has a wide readership, a good question to ask yourself is, is the work of wide interest or would the work be better in a more focussed journal. Also remember, Associate Editors do look up the work/materials in Web of Science to see what has been done previously in the area. This give the context for the work and we are looking to see if the work extends the current state-of-the-art, has impact, or if it is incremental. Again, it is good to ask yourself this question before you submit. These are questions I ask about my own manuscripts and information, which I include in the cover letter to help convince the editors to consider my work.

Professor Nestor Mariano Correa, Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto, Argentina

1. What are your most common reasons for rejecting a manuscript without review?

When a manuscript arrives at my desk the first thing that I do is see how different from what is already known in this subject. I expect to read it in the cover letter but, this does not always happen. Thus, in my case, this is the main reason for rejecting without review: the lack of originality of the work.

2. What is the best piece of advice you could give a submitting author?

My advice to all the authors that want to send a manuscript to RSC Advances is to take the time to prepare a good cover letter, indicating the advances in the field that the work will do and, to clearly stress the novelties from works already published. A good (short) abstract, introduction that clearly highlights the goals of the work, and concise and convincing conclusions are always welcome.

We want to thank Brenno, Donna and Nestor for providing such informative answers, and we hope you find them useful in your next submission to RSC Advances!

Don’t miss out on our previous tips on how to publish and not perish below:

Advancing with Advances – Part 1

Advancing with Advances – Part 2

Tune in next week for more interviews with our Associate Editors where they discuss their most common reasons for rejecting manuscripts and reveal more publishing tips!

If there is something you would like covered in our next article, please send in any questions you have about peer-review or publishing to advances-rsc@rsc.org or post them on Twitter @RSCAdvances #AdvancingWithAdvances.

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Advancing with Advances- How to publish and not perish (Part 2)

04 Aug 2022

Why did in-house editors reject my paper?

From the perspective of two staff editors at RSC Advances

Research papers submitted to RSC Advances are subject to initial quality checks by in-house editors before they are passed on to our expert Associate Editors for assessment. This week we are going to take a peek behind the curtain of the editing team at RSC Advances and see how in-house editors reject papers that do not meet the journal’s criteria.

Editors first check whether a manuscript is within the scope of the journal as described on the journal website. Papers published in RSC Advances must present insights that advance the chemistry field or be of interest to chemists. Most of the manuscripts we reject for being out of scope may contain some chemistry (for example, a chemical compound used as a drug or for drug delivery) but with the primary scientific advance in a different field such as pharmacology, statistics, genetics, etc. Manuscripts that are out of the scope of the journal are rejected without peer-review no matter how sound the science is.

Once editors are satisfied that the paper fits within the scope of the journal, we go through your manuscript to ensure that all relevant and correct documents for submission are present. All our experimental data reporting requirements can be found online. The emails we most frequently send as editors are those requesting authors for supporting data as what was supplied did not meet our requirements. We cannot publish papers where the data provided does not meet our data standards. For example, all Western blot and other electrophoresis data should be supported by the underlying uncropped and unprocessed raw images, all new small molecule crystal data must be present in the CIF (Crystallographic Information File) format, etc.

Burlington House, London (Headquarters of the Royal Society of Chemistry)

In addition, do keep in mind good publishing practices and follow the ethical guidelines that we have listed on our Author hub. Key points to keep in mind are:

Make sure you address the scope of the paper in your cover letter or in your bibliography by citing previous work from the same journal and/or similar journals.
Use your own words to describe previous work and experiments, and make that sure all your references are correct.
Avoid making unsupported claims about your findings and provide all data supporting your findings either in the main paper or in the Electronic Supplementary Information. The Royal Society of Chemistry also strongly encourages authors to deposit the data underpinning their research in appropriate repositories.
Only submit your manuscript to one journal at a time.

Thomas Graham House, Cambridge (where Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing is based)

If your paper has already been peer-reviewed at another Royal Society of Chemistry journal, please make sure to address the previous reviewer comments and revise the paper before submitting it to RSC Advances (and preferably include the point-by-point response to the previous referee comments as well). We feel that it is very important that the time and efforts of our reviewers are duly acknowledged in this manner, and this process should also help to improve the quality of work published in our journals. Be firm yet diplomatic in your responses to referee comments (even if the referees are confrontational). There is nothing to be gained in responding aggressively, even if you are sure you are right. Even if the referee reports are very negative, your paper may still be accepted if the Editor is convinced by your rebuttal letter.

In-house editors support external expert Associate Editors in their handling of papers, but we also support authors too. If you have any queries about data or scope pre- or post- submission of your paper, please do get in touch with the journal and we will be happy to help.

We hope that we have provided some clarity about why in-house editors at RSC Advances reject papers and what can be done to avoid this in any future submissions!

Tune in next week for interviews with three of our Associate Editors where they discuss their most common reasons for rejecting manuscripts and reveal their best publishing tips!

You are welcome to send in any questions you have about peer-review or publishing to advances-rsc@rsc.org or post them on Twitter @RSCAdvances #AdvancingWithAdvances.

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Advancing with Advances- How to publish and not perish (Part 1)

27 Jul 2022

Why did the editor reject my manuscript?

Guest post by Professor Robert Baker, Trinity College Dublin

Most of the readers of this blog are driven by curiosity. The question “why?” is something we have at the forefront of our scientific endeavours. Why did this reaction give black insoluble gunk? Why is the reaction yield 5% (rounded up)? Some of the more interesting results have come from questioning the “why?” of failed reactions – Vaska’s complex was discovered by accident, Kubas discovered the first dihydrogen complexes because of a poor yield, and there are many more examples from all branches of chemistry. Then we spend ages analysing the data; “why?” did the NMR spectrum have too many peaks. After that we put all the answers to our “why?” on paper and send it to a journal for peer review. But how many times do we receive the following email from an editor rejecting our carefully crafted manuscript?

“ Dear author,

Thank you for your recent submission to RSC Advances, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. All manuscripts are initially assessed by the editors to ensure they meet the criteria for publication in the journal.

After careful evaluation of your manuscript, I regret to inform you that I do not find your manuscript suitable for publication in RSC Advances because it does not meet the novelty and impact requirements of the journal. Therefore your article has been rejected from RSC Advances.

Yours sincerely,

The Editor”

Professor Robert James Baker is an Assistant Professor at the School of Chemistry, Trinity College Dublin and an Associate Editor as well as Editorial Board member of RSC Advances

In this series we will explore some of the pitfalls of submission from an editor’s point of view and move your science forward. From experience, some of the common problems revolve around cover letters, how the manuscript is presented and how to respond to referees’ comments – “why” did they not get it? “why” didn’t I think of that?

Later on in this blog series, I will be sharing some of the cover letters and reviewer responses that accompanied rejected as well as successful manuscripts that I authored (and the stories behind them) in order to highlight that not only manuscripts require to be revised. As an Associate Editor in the areas of spectroscopy, homogenous catalysis and inorganic chemistry at RSC Advances, I come across several manuscripts with cover letters in the following format:

“Dear Editor:

Here we submit the paper entitled “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”. We would be grateful if the manuscript could be reviewed and considered for publication in RSC Advances. Thank you for your kind consideration.

Signed- The authors”

Such redundant cover letters do not help the cause of the manuscript. At the very minimum, the cover letter should clearly state the advance made to literature in a manner that helps editors and reviewers evaluate the manuscript.

Here are my:

Most common reasons for rejecting a manuscript without review?

Does the introduction set the scene – what is the problem the authors are looking at and why is it different to the literature. Context is key. So very short introductions with few references to the state-of-the-art are not good.
Remember it is a results AND discussion section on a discussion of YOUR results. Again context – are your results good, bad or indifferent?
Does the introduction and conclusion match the results? It is surprising how many manuscripts give a very ‘templated’ introduction on results from the last paper and not this current one.

Best piece of advice to a submitting author?

You are telling a story of WHY your results are important. Lead the reviewer and reader by the hand, explain everything that is important, but do it succinctly. The reader of your article wants to learn something new, so tell them what is new.

Having a manuscript rejected by an editor or peer reviewers is sometimes tough to take, especially in the early stages of your career. It’s frustrating and annoying but it happens to everyone; the comments are on your work, not you as a person or scientist. The best (though not necessarily easiest) way to look at it is as a learning experience. For example, I submitted a manuscript early in my career with the elemental analysis mixed up between two compounds; a referee picked up on this and the whole report was:

“The bulk purity of the compounds has not been proven, therefore none of the conclusions are remotely valid. Reject.”

I have not made the same mistake again!

You are welcome to send in any questions you have about peer-review or publishing to advances-rsc@rsc.org or post them on Twitter @RSCAdvances #AdvancingWithAdvances.

Tune in next week for our feature on how manuscripts are rejected by professional editors on scope and/or data concerns!

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An Interview with Shirley Nakagaki, President of the Brazilian Chemical Society

22 Jul 2022

We are delighted to announce that Shirley Nakagaki, one of our Editorial Board members, has been elected as president of the Brazilian Chemical Society.

This makes Shirley the second ever female researcher to be president of this society in the forty-five years it has been active. To celebrate this achievement, we asked Shirley the following questions, and we hope you find her answers as motivating as we do!

Can you explain your area of research for a non-specialist in the area?

My main interest lies in the study (preparation, characterization and application) of molecules called metalloporphyrins. The key application of these molecules in my research group is in the preparation of compounds known as catalysts (a kind of chemical that accelerates chemical reactions) for oxidation, sequential and esterification reactions. For example, an important oxidation reaction is one that results in an acid species (adipic acid) which is one of the reactants that produces polymeric fibres like nylon. These fibres are used in a range of materials from pantyhose to very sophisticated devices that are part of the International Space Station. In some cases, the catalytic species I study and develop are inspired by biological systems that act as catalysts, in a chemical model known as biomimetic chemistry. In particular, this means that my compounds that act as catalysts can react in a similar way to enzymes, a chemical component found in very efficient biological systems that accelerate reactions necessary to keep organisms alive. In some cases, the catalytic species I study and develop are inspired by biological systems in a chemical model known as biomimetic chemistry. This means my compounds act as catalysts, in a very similar way to enzymes.

What work are you the proudest of?

Fortunately, I can say that I am proud of all my work developed in my 30-year career in the chemical sciences. I have been a supervisor to many chemistry students, supporting them through their undergraduate projects, master’s degree dissertations and PhD theses. These projects have resulted in different products such as patents and scientific papers. However, the education of new chemistry professionals, be it researchers or chemistry professors, is probably my most important job.

What do you find motivating?

My motivation comes from different parts. Firstly, through being a professor, my motivation comes from my students in the classroom or in the lab. When they ask me about chemistry in general or particularly inorganic chemistry, I find motivation in trying to explain to them in the best way that they can solve whatever doubts they have. Another source of motivation comes from realizing every day, and at the end of every paper I read, that there are many things we still do not know and cannot explain in the light of science, particularly in the chemical sciences. The chemical knowledge is vast and fascinating. Everything around us, in some way, involves a chemical process that can or will be explained, either now or in some distant future, based on the advance of the scientific knowledge.

How did your career path lead you to become elected as the president of the Brazilian Chemical Society?

When I was a chemistry undergraduate student in Sao Paulo University, Ribeirao Preto city campus (countryside part of the Sao Paulo State), I joined Professor Yassuko Iamamoto’s research group with a scholarship to work in the development of catalysts for oxidation reactions. Our first research results were presented in the annual meeting of the SBQ – (Brazilian Chemical Society) of which I became an associate in 1983. After that, every year I attended the annual meeting and presented the research results of my master’s degree or PhD studies. After I finished my graduate school, I joined Federal University of Paraná (a southern state in Brazil) and created my own research group. In the SBQ I joined as a director in the inorganic chemistry division, since I believed and continue to believe that I can contribute with my work to build a strong and big Brazilian chemical society that represents the strength of the chemical science in Brazilian universities as well as Brazilian research centres.

What will your role entail and what are you aiming to achieve?

Firstly, I believe that my role as president of the SBQ is to contribute daily to the growth of our society and to foster the good work of the previous 21 presidents. In addition, I have a big responsibility to show young chemists, graduate and undergraduate students, the importance of our society as a civil organization. They are a voice to be heard in issues in which the chemical community can contribute to the greater society. We also hope that our voice can be one that includes, fosters, and promotes quality scientific discussion, being plural, diverse and inclusive.

What are the biggest challenges facing the Brazilian Chemistry Community?

Regarding the chemical sciences, there are many challenges we face. For one, providing quality scientific education for young people in a country with continental figures and big social and income inequalities. We find a good, international level education in one part of the country and a complete lack of basic infrastructure in other parts. Regarding the scientific research, we face low and declining levels of investment, which affects the continuity of good research programs. We face many challenges to become the country we dream of.

What are the most exciting areas in the Brazilian Chemistry Community?

We have many strong research areas in Brazil. These include using natural products to explore our big biodiversity, the preparation and use of new materials, and we have excellent researchers making contributions to the new and alternative energies. In addition, given our great natural resource reserve, we have brilliant researchers working on the extraction of new substances from our biodiverse biomes and developing new pharmacological alternatives from these results. Some of these natural findings are already being prepared in our universities. Our scientific community is very versatile and creative. Despite receiving little financial support, we have produced excellent results. This can be seen in the quality of our Brazilian researchers’ publications around the world. For example, I can quote the Brazilian Science Panorama 2015-2020 report from the Science, Technology and Innovation Observatory (CGEE- OCTI), which shows the Brazilian production of scientific research papers grew 32% in 2020 in comparison to 2015, while the global production only grew 27%. During these five years more than 11 million papers were indexed in Web of Science (WoS), of which 372 thousand are papers with at least one author linked to our Brazilian institutions, giving us the 13^th position in global production, surpassing Russia (14^th), Iran (15^th), the Netherlands (16^th) and Turkey (17^th). In 2020, this participation reached 3.2% of global scientific research production. These figures are considering scientific papers as a whole, but according to WoS, chemistry is the second area of research in number of indexed papers, lagging only behind the engineering area. These are very relevant figures as it shows the strength of chemistry in Brazilian scientific research, which is concentrated mostly in public universities where our SBQ associates work.

How does it feel being the 2^nd woman to hold this position and how is this going to inspire a younger generation of female chemists?

I can see in our long line of SBQ female associates so many chemists that could be in my place. Women are about 50% of all SBQ associates. We have excellent scientists, chemical educators and researchers in our pool of associates. I am not the first female president; I am only the second one in this rough path opened by Prof. Vanderlan Bolzani. But, paraphrasing vice-president Kamala Harris, “I will make sure I will not be the last”. Hopefully, my work will serve as an example and inspiration so that women in SBQ can see that it is possible to be in my position and occupy this space, if we serve with dedication and love to the SBQ.

You have been a member of the RSC Advances Editorial Board since September 2020. What would you say are the biggest strengths of the journal?

Being a member of the RSC Advances Editorial Board has been an interesting and significant experience, considering the size and relevance of the RSC to the world and to the SBQ. Through the years both societies have not only kept good relations but developed key partnerships of research. From my remote participation on the meetings (due to the new coronavirus pandemic) I gathered that the main interest of this journal is to deliver papers of unquestionable scientific quality through an open access journal. On this aspect, the journal invests greatly in its editorial board, giving them adequate support for their job. Moreover, I found it very positive the journal’s actions towards making it more inclusive and transparent.

What do you hope to achieve in your career over the next 10 years?

What I hope to achieve in my career over the next 10 years is continuous progress both from scientific and educational standpoints. I hope to continue to investigate multifunctional catalytic solids aimed at sequential reactions as opposed to single process catalysts. I believe they are more adequate alternatives considering the reduction in cost, time and use of available resources during the preparation of reactions. Furthermore, shaping new generations of chemists has always been a career goal of mine, so I hope I can continue to give classes and participate in the education and formation of professionals in this area of science that is dear to my heart, Chemistry!

Please join me in extending our congratulations to Shirley for this achievement. We hope you continue to inspire the next generation of chemists!

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Research Infographic: Excess chemical potential of thiophene in [C4MIM] [BF4, Cl, Br, CH3COO] ionic liquids, determined by molecular simulations

24 May 2022

Ionic liquids are considered green solvents and can be used to extract sulfur based compounds in the desulfurization of fuels.

Gallo et al. have published an interesting research article investigating the excess chemical potential of a of imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs) using classical molecular dynamic simulations.

Find out more in the open access article:

Excess chemical potential of thiophene in [C₄MIM] [BF₄, Cl, Br, CH₃COO] ionic liquids, determined by molecular simulations

Marco Gallo et al. RSC Adv., 2021,11, 29394-29406

Tweet about it here!

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RSC Advances Popular Advances – an Interview with Ponnadurai Ramasami

20 May 2022

We are very pleased to introduce Professor Ponnadurai Ramasami, who is joint corresponding author on the paper, Theoretical study of a derivative of chlorophosphine with aliphatic and aromatic Grignard reagents: SN2@P or the novel SN2@Cl followed by SN2@C?. The manuscript was well received by reviewers and was handpicked by our reviewers and handling editors to be part of our Popular Advances collection. Ponnadurai told us more about the work that went into this article and what he hopes to achieve in the future. You can find out more about the authors and their article below. To view our other Popular Advances, please explore our collection here.

Professor Ponnadurai Ramasami, CSci, CChem, FRSC, FICCE, MMast, received his PhD in Physical Chemistry and became full Professor in 2013. He leads the Computational Chemistry Group, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science at the University of Mauritius. The research group focuses on the use of computational methods to solve chemistry and interdisciplinary problems. The group is particularly interested in collaborating with experimentalists, and they use computational methods to complement experimental research. He has already published 260 research papers in peer-reviewed journals and he has edited several books. He is the chairman of the annual Virtual Conference on Chemistry and its Applications.

Could you briefly explain the focus of your article to the non-specialist (in one or two sentences only) and why it is of current interest?

The focus of the article is the computational investigation of S_N2 reactions in organic molecules which contain both phosphorus and chlorine atoms.

The S_N2 reaction mechanism was discovered in the 1930’s by scientists Hughes and Ingold, and since then has been used in a number of syntheses; however, it is still of current interest as new aspects of this mechanism, at the molecular level, are still being discovered. These aspects include new sites of nucleophilic attack which are not immediately chemically intuitive.

How big an impact could your results potentially have?

In textbooks, S_N2 reactions are defined in a firm way, often taking the example of S_N2 at the carbon atom, detailing hill-shaped potential energy surfaces and nucleophilic attack at one specific atom centre. However, our research indicates that these well-established facts may change. Potential energy surfaces may take the shape of single, double or triple wells or a combination of hill and well shapes. The most preferred site of nucleophilic attack may change according to what neighbouring groups are present in the molecule of interest. It is important to include and try to explain these differences in chemistry textbooks.

Could you explain the motivation behind this study?

The Computational Chemistry Group of the University of Mauritius (CCUoM) was set up in 2003 in the Department of Chemistry. Our interest has always been on the investigation of different aspects of reaction mechanisms. We have a programme to study S_N2 reaction mechanisms, which resulted in two PhD graduates and several publications. We started by studying the effect of different nucleophiles. Another part of the programme involved studying S_N2 reactions at different atoms within one molecule. This started in 2017, when we came across one experimental study which involved S_N2 at the phosphorus atom. We tried to explain the results of this experimental study using computational methods, which led us to discover S_N2 at the chlorine atom.

In your opinion, what are the key design considerations for your study?

For S_N2 reactions, the key design considerations involve the reactive atom centres, neighbouring groups, the solvent and the nucleophiles. These may be used to tune reactions to design molecules of interest.

Which part of the work towards this paper proved to be most challenging?

Working with bulky molecules was the most challenging part. Computations involving bulky molecules are demanding in terms of computational cost. It is often challenging to strike the right balance between computational cost and accuracy of results.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment?

When this research project started, it was about S_N2 reactions at the phosphorus atom but along the research journey, we stumbled on the S_N2 at the chlorine atom, which offers a new world of possibilities to investigate. The possibilities are what we are most excited about.

What is the next step? What work is planned?

Our next projects will involve changing key factors in the S_N2 reaction mechanism involving the chlorine atom and determining the effect. We are considering changing the nucleophiles which we investigated, modifying the solvent system, and changing neighbouring groups. We are also considering investigating S_N2 reactions at other reactive atoms, such as bromine and iodine.

Theoretical study of a derivative of chlorophosphine with aliphatic and aromatic Grignard reagents: SN2@P or the novel SN2@Cl followed by SN2@C?

Nandini Savoo,^a Lydia Rhyman*^ab and Ponnadurai Ramasami*^ab

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Archive for the ‘RSC Advances’ Category

RSC Advances Popular Advances – an Interview with Takashi Morii

July 2022 Popular Advances Articles

July 2022 RSC Advances Review Articles

RSC Advances welcomes two new Associate Editors: Shannon Biros and Giulia Fiorani

Advancing with Advances – How to Publish and not Perish (part 3)

Advancing with Advances- How to publish and not perish (Part 2)

Advancing with Advances- How to publish and not perish (Part 1)

An Interview with Shirley Nakagaki, President of the Brazilian Chemical Society

Research Infographic: Excess chemical potential of thiophene in [C4MIM] [BF4, Cl, Br, CH3COO] ionic liquids, determined by molecular simulations

RSC Advances Popular Advances – an Interview with Ponnadurai Ramasami

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