Researchers develop efficient process for chemical terpene synthesis

Potential applications in food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries

20-Feb-2023 - A team of scientists led by Professor Tanja Gulder at Leipzig University’s Institute of Organic Chemistry, together with colleagues from the University of Regensburg, has developed a simplified and efficient method for the artificial production of terpenes. Terpenes are a very extensive and ...

Bacterial toxin renders algae motionless

Team of biologists and chemists discover the mode of action of a bacterial toxin

05-Jan-2023 - Biologists and chemists at the University of Jena decipher properties of a bacterial toxin that renders the unicellular green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii motionless. The toxin appears to hijak the calcium channels of the target algae, causing a rapid influx of calcium ions that within one ...

Modified enzyme brings value to lignin monomers

Conversion of lignin into valuable chemicals

01-Dec-2022 - The chemical industry faces the challenge of replacing fossil-based building blocks with green alternatives. Biomass is an interesting source of carbon-based molecules. It is also underused because some 25 percent of all plant biomass is in the form of lignin, a biopolymer that, so far, can only ...

Light-powered microbes are super-producing chemical factories

New method allows bacteria to use light for external energy to accelerate biomanufacturing of target compounds without disrupting the host microorganism's natural metabolism

14-Apr-2022 - Sharing is key to living in society, whether it’s toddlers sharing toys or nations sharing natural resources; but there’s no avoiding the fact that one side getting more means that the other side gets less. Now, researchers from Osaka University, in collaboration with the University of Shizuoka ...

Hope in the fight against cancer: They build proteins that are not known to nature

Basel-​based biotech startup has big ideas for the future: it aims to take protein engineering into a new era

15-Jun-2021 - Using chemical synthesis, Bright Peak Therapeutics can produce proteins that have never before existed. This holds great potential for cancer immunotherapy. The Basel-​based spin-​off has its beginnings at ETH Zurich. Jeffrey Bode’s long, bold journey began over an after-​work beer in Tokyo. A ...

Inhoffen Medal 2019 awarded to specialist for synthetic organic chemistry

08-Apr-2019 - Medically relevant compounds can often be found in nature. To make them suitable for drugs, they need to be isolated from their natural sources. If sufficient quantities of the agent cannot be isolated in that manner, chemical synthesis comes into play. Without chemical synthesis, many agents ...

Duplicate or mirror? Laser light determines chirality of molecules

19-Mar-2019 - Seven of the ten most frequent medications contain chiral agents. These are molecules that occur in right- or left-handed forms. During chemical synthesis both forms usually occur in equal parts and have to be separated afterward, because chirality determines the agent’s effect in the body. ...

Gaining control over soft-molecule synthesis

16-Jan-2019 - By gaining control over shape, size and composition during synthetic molecule assembly, researchers can begin to probe how these factors influence the function of soft materials. Finding these answers could help advance virology, drug delivery development and the creation of new materials. "We ...

Carrying and releasing nanoscale cargo with 'nanowrappers'

Nanocubes for biomedicine, catalysis and beyond

08-Jan-2019 - This holiday season, scientists at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)--a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory--have wrapped a box of a different kind. Using a one-step chemical synthesis method, they engineered hollow metallic ...

Chemical synthesis breakthrough holds promise for future antibiotics

21-Dec-2018 - University of Colorado Boulder chemistry researchers have developed a novel way to synthesize and optimize a naturally-occurring antibiotic compound that could one day be used to fight lethal drug-resistant infections such as Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA. Antibiotic-resistant ...