RSC Advances Blog

Creative assemblies for targeted drug delivery

25 Apr 2013

Stimuli-responsive assemblies have generated a lot of interest in recent years especially in view of their biological applications. Enzyme-responsive assemblies for controlled drug release have gained particular interest as this offers potentially selective and targeted delivery of therapeutics.

A team of scientists from Nankai University (China) led by Yu Liu have fabricated a supramolecular assembly based on the host-guest complexation of amphiphillic calixarene with adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Complextion of the calixarene with ATP markedly lowers it’s critical aggregation concentration, forming hollow spherical nanoparticles. The nanospheres were shown to be responsive to phosphatase – an enzyme over-expressed in many tumor cells – and thus may have applications in drug delivery and cancer therapy.

Read the full article for free until the 24th May 2013:

Phosphatase-responsive amphiphilic calixarene assembly, Yi-Xuan Wang, Dong-Sheng Guo, Yu Caoa and Yu Liu, RSC Adv., 2013, DOI: 10.1039/C3RA40453F

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RSC Grants for the 44th IUPAC World Chemistry Congress

22 Apr 2013

By Mary Badcock, Deputy Editor.

The RSC are delighted to be able to provide £400 bursaries for ten UK-based PhD student and early career researcher members to participate in the 44^th IUPAC World Chemistry Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, between the 11^th and 16^th August 2013.

The main topic of this year’s congress is “Clean Energy Through Chemistry”. Speakers include Daniel Nocera from Harvard and Martin Quack from ETH Zurich. For more details, please see http://www.iupac2013.org/.

To apply for this grant, please complete the application form (my.rsc.org/content/images/Science/IUPAC-application.pdf) and include a copy of your CV by noon on Friday the 26^th April. Applications should be sent to science@rsc.org. Please note that the registration deadline for IUPAC 2013 is the 30^th April. Members wishing to apply for an RSC grant will also need to register for the congress via the IUPAC 2013 website (http://www.iupac2013.org/abstract_submissions.asp).

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email science@rsc.org.

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Energy storage of the future?

11 Apr 2013

By Sara Coles, Guest Web-Writer.

Sara Coles is a guest web-writer for RSC Advances. She currently works for Johnson Matthey in Royston, UK.

Supercapacitors, also known as electrochemical capacitors, are used as highly reliable energy storage devices with the advantage of rapid charge and discharge compared to batteries. However to further expand their use it is necessary to improve their performance in other areas including energy density.

Ruthenium oxide is the material widely used for supercapacitor electrodes. Its use is reviewed by Wentao Deng and colleagues in China and the UK, in a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in this area. Ruthenium oxide decorated carbon nanotubes for supercapacitors

Work has not stopped on improving the performance of these highly promising devices – far from it. Just to take a couple of examples, Sho Makino and colleagues from Japan have used nanostructured ruthenium oxide in an aqueous hybrid supercapacitor with a specific energy comparable to modern rechargeable batteries, opening the possibility of using these materials in a post-lithium ion battery technology. Meanwhile Beena Balan and colleagues from India have looked at decorating carbon nanotubes with ruthenium oxide to produce a ternary electrode material to increase the specific capacitance by 103%, with enhanced rate and excellent electrochemical stability.

Read more about this valuable research in RSC Advances – free to access for 4 weeks:

Electrochemical capacitors utilising transition metal oxides: an update of recent developments, Wentao Deng, Xiaobo Ji, Qiyuan Chen and Craig E. Banks, RSC Adv., 2011, 1, 1171

4 V class aqueous hybrid electrochemical capacitor with battery-like capacity,Sho Makino, Yuto Shinohara, Takayuki Ban, Wataru Shimizu, Keita Takahashi, Nobuyuki Imanishib and Wataru Sugimoto, RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 12144

Carbon nanofiber–RuO2–poly(benzimidazole) ternary hybrids for improved supercapacitor performance, Beena K Balan, Harshal D Chaudhari, Ulhas K Kharul and Sreekumar Kurungot, RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 2428

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Electron-conjugation facilitates electron transfer of hemoglobin by Ce(OH)3 nanorods

05 Apr 2013

By Mary Badcock, Deputy Editor.

Scientists from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China) led by Kebin Zhou investigated the interaction between nanorods of Ce(OH)₃ and CeO₂ and the redox protein hemoglobin.

The nano-bio interfaces, such as those between inorganic nanomaterials and biological systems, are gaining a significant amount of interest due to their importance in biomedical applications, but also out of concerns over the bio-safety of nano-engineered particles. In the case of ceria-based nanomaterials, some studies have found they were able to prevent the increase of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in vitro and in vivo due to the existence of Ce³⁺. However, others have found that some of these materials could actually generate ROS and cause toxicity to cells as Ce⁴⁺ is reduced to Ce³⁺.

In this work, Zhou and co-workers hydrothermally prepared Ce(OH)₃ and CeO₂ nanorods and studied their interaction with a typical redox protein hemoglobin through an electrochemical method combined with Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy. Ce(OH)₃ was found to be more efficient in enhancing the direct electron-transfer of hemoglobin which may be due to the strong electron-conjugation interaction.

Read the full article for free until the 7th May 2013.

Strong electron-conjugation interaction facilitates electron transfer of hemoglobin by Ce(OH)₃nanorods, Lei Wang, Qingfen Luan, Dan Yang, Xin Yao and Kebin Zhou, RSC Adv., 2013, DOI: 10.1039/C3RA40336J

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Nucleic Acids: new life, new materials – web themed issue now published!

28 Mar 2013

By Mary Badcock, Deputy Editor.

Read this joint OBC, ChemComm and RSC Advances web themed issue, showcasing some of the best research in Nucleic Acids chemistry

Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, ChemComm and RSC Advances are delighted to announce the publication of a timely web collection on:

Nucleic Acids: new life, new materials

Guest-edited by:

Michael Gait (MRC, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK)	Nadrian Seeman (New York University, USA)
Makoto Komiyama (University of Tsukuba, Japan)	Oliver Seitz (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany)
David Liu (Harvard University, USA)	Jason Mickelfield (University of Manchester, UK)

Through over 70 communications, full papers, feature articles and perspectives, this collection guides the reader through the most recent and exciting findings in nucleic acids research and applications in emerging areas.

Some of the work presented in this virtual collection is also dedicated to the memory of Professor Har Gobind Khorana (1922 – 2011) and Dr Daniel McGillivray Brown (1923 – 2012) acknowledging their legacy to the nucleic acids community.

“The ingenuity of nucleic acids chemists is formidable, particularly in the newly emerging areas involving DNA architecture combined with novel chemical modifications and material composites. This web collection nicely showcases this potential.”
… Read this and more in the guest-editors’ Editorial for the issue.

As a taster, this collection of articles includes:

Pyridostatin analogues promote telomere dysfunction and long-term growth inhibition in human cancer cells
Sebastian Müller, Deborah A. Sanders, Marco Di Antonio, Stephanos Matsis, Jean-François Riou, Raphaël Rodriguez and Shankar Balasubramanian
Org. Biomol. Chem., DOI: 10.1039/C2OB25830G, Paper

A clocked finite state machine built from DNA
Cristina Costa Santini, Jonathan Bath, Andy M. Tyrrell and Andrew J. Turberfield
Chem. Commun., DOI: 10.1039/C2CC37227D

Theoretical model of substrate-assisted self-assembly of DNA nanostructures
Shogo Hamada and Satoshi Murata
RSC Adv., DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20764H

Reduction of metal ions by boranephosphonate DNA
Subhadeep Roy, Magdalena Olesiak, Petra Padar, Heather McCuen and Marvin H. Caruthers
Org. Biomol. Chem., DOI: 10.1039/C2OB26661J

Dehydration from conserved stem regions is fundamental for ligand-dependent conformational transition of the adenine-specific riboswitch
Vinit Kumar, Tamaki Endoh, Kentaro Murakami and Naoki Sugimoto
Chem. Commun., DOI: 10.1039/C2CC34506D

DNA glycoclusters and DNA-based carbohydrate microarrays: From design to applications
François Morvan, Sébastien Vidal, Eliane Souteyrand, Yann Chevolot and Jean-Jacques Vasseur
RSC Adv., DOI: 10.1039/C2RA21550K

The bacterial second messenger c-di-GMP: probing interactions with protein and RNA binding partners using cyclic dinucleotide analogs
Carly A. Shanahan and Scott A. Strobel
Org. Biomol. Chem., DOI: 10.1039/C2OB26724A

A DNA based five-state switch with programmed reversibility
Jonathan R. Burns, Søren Preus, Daniel G. Singleton and Eugen Stulz
Chem. Commun., DOI: 10.1039/C2CC35799B

Two-photon excitation of the fluorescent nucleobase analogues 2-AP and tC
R. S. K. Lane and S. W. Magennis
RSC Adv., DOI: 10.1039/C2RA21881J

…and many more.

We hope that you will find this collection enjoyable and stimulating to read!

Please feel free to send the link to the issue to other researchers who you think may be interested.

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Professor Mike Ward welcomes the RSC Advances Advisory Board

25 Mar 2013

By Mary Badcock, Deputy Editor.

Professor Mike Ward, Chair of the RSC Advances Editorial Board, welcomes the new Advisory Board to the Journal.

“RSC Advances is delighted to announce the appointment of a 25-strong Advisory Board. It consists of distinguished academics from all over the world whose collective work, in keeping with the broad scope of the Journal, covers all areas of the chemical sciences with an emphasis on interdiscplinary and emerging areas. As the Journal goes from strength to strength – passing 2000 published articles and moving from monthly to weekly publication in just a year and a half after starting – the Editorial Board members and publishing team look forward to working with our Advisory Board members in helping to promote the Journal around the world, to improve the content even further, and to ensure that RSC Advances remains at the forefront of chemistry publishing.”

Ayyappanpillai Ajayaghosh National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, India	Ali Khademhosseini Harvard Medical School, USA
Bruce Arndtsen McGill University, Canada	Jinghong Li Tsinghua University, China
Vanderlan da Silva Bolzani Sao Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil	Kenneth Lo City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Sally Brooker University of Otago, New Zealand	Hiromi Nakai Waseda University, Japan
S. Chandrasekhar Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, India	Colin Raston Flinders University, Australia
Yougtae Chang National University of Singapore, Singapore	John Roberts Caltech, USA
Hui-Ming Cheng Shenyang National Laboratory, China	Siddhartha Roy Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, India
Kilwon Cho Pohang University of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea	Magnus Rueping RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Andrew deMello ETH Zurich, Switzerland	Bradley D. Smith University of Notre Dame, USA
Koichi Eguchi Kyoto University, Japan	Roman Surmenev Tomsk Polytechnic University, Russia
Teruo Fujii University of Tokyo, Japan	Nico Völcker University of South Australia, Australia
Stefan Grimme University of Bonn, Germany	Christoph Weder University of Freibourg, Switzerland
Malcolm Halcrow University of Leeds, UK	Chunhua Yan Peking University, China

Stay up-to-date with the latest content in RSC Advances by registering for our free newsletter and table of contents alerts.

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Flexible ligand secret to solvent-free success

07 Mar 2013

By Sara Coles, Guest Web-Writer.

Sara Coles is a guest web-writer for RSC Advances. She currently works for Johnson Matthey in Royston, UK.

Steven P. Nolan’s group at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, UK, have reported a new solvent-free protocol for carrying out Buchwald-Hartwig aminations, an important class of reactions, for unactivated aryl chlorides using a palladium pre-catalyst. The reaction proceeds to complete conversion in around five minutes when initiated at room temperature, compared to zero conversion when using a solvent (DME). The secret to their success appears to be the use of a bulky yet flexible ligand, IPr*, in the pre-catalyst.

A highly effective solvent-free protocol for the Buchwald–Hartwig amination of unactivated aryl chlorides by palladium pre catalyst

The reaction requires 1 mol% of the [Pd(NHC)] pre-catalyst – halving the amount of catalyst halved the conversion rate. An exotherm was observed in many cases: the reaction self-heated to 80ºC for a few seconds, therefore the group concludes that the protocol could be dangerous if carried out at a large scale. Interestingly the coupling could also be carried out with a solid substrate, leading to conversion of 73% after 24h, with no observed exotherm but a longer reaction time.

To learn more about this intriguing class of reactions, read the original article in RSC Advances:

Solvent-free aryl amination catalysed by [Pd(NHC)] Complexes, Anthony Chartoire, Arnaud Boreux, Anthony R. Martin and Steven P. Nolan, RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 3840–3843

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Bone-repairing nanoparticles laced with DNA

28 Feb 2013

By Mary Badcock, Deputy Editor.

A bone-repairing nanoparticle paste has been developed that promises faster repair of fractures and breakages. DNA containing two growth-factor genes is encapsulated inside synthetic calcium-phosphate nanoparticles. These genes can enter cells and induce the synthesis of proteins that are able to accelerate bone growth.

The treatment of bone loss or fracture – after trauma, surgery or tumour extractions, for instance – represents a major challenge in clinical medicine. Matthias Epple at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, who leads the team that developed the new bone paste, explains that ‘alternatives, such as bone from donors and synthetic calcium phosphate, suffer from infection problems, poor mechanical stability or inadequate resorption to form new bone.’ The team’s approach combines the bone-forming action of calcium phosphate – the principal component of bone – at the site of injection with further stimulation of bone growth in the surrounding tissue.

Injecting the paste into the bone Genes for two growth factors are encapsulated within the nanoparticles: bone morphogenetic protein 7 (BMP-7), which stimulates bone-forming cells, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which induces the growth of blood vessels for bone-cell nutrition. Following injection, the nanoparticles are taken up by the surrounding cells, where the acidic conditions of the lysosomes dissolves the calcium phosphate and releases the DNA. These transfected cells then produce the growth factors that accelerate bone growth and reduce the amount of time a patient is immobile. Epple expects a long-lasting stimulatory effect that will aid growth over the months and years required for bones to heal fully, preventing the need for multiple injections.

Michael Hofmann, who works on bone cements and drug delivery at the University of Birmingham, UK, remarks: ‘The bioresorbable paste would be replaced quickly by newly formed bone, so effectively you would have a vanishing implant. In a population where an increasing number of people have impaired bone-growth abilities – for instance, the elderly – the findings have tremendous potential for accelerating the regrowth of any bone loss or fracture in orthopaedic and dental applications.’

Epple’s team plan to extend their work on calcium-phosphate nanoparticles to target specific cell types by attaching antibodies to the nanoparticle surface.

by Michael Parkin

The above story was published in Chemistry World on the 13th February 2013: Bone-repairing nanoparticles laced with DNA

Read the full article for free until the 29th March 2013!

A genetically active nano-calcium phosphate paste for bone substitution, encoding the formation of BMP-7 and VEGF-A, Svetlana Chernousova, Jan Klesing, Nadia Soklakova and Matthias Epple, RSC Adv., 2013, DOI: 10.1039/C3RA23450A

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RSC Advances Blog

Creative assemblies for targeted drug delivery

RSC Grants for the 44th IUPAC World Chemistry Congress

Top 10 most accessed articles in January

Energy storage of the future?

Electron-conjugation facilitates electron transfer of hemoglobin by Ce(OH)3 nanorods

Nucleic Acids: new life, new materials – web themed issue now published!

Professor Mike Ward welcomes the RSC Advances Advisory Board

Top 10 most accessed articles in 2012

Flexible ligand secret to solvent-free success

Bone-repairing nanoparticles laced with DNA

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