Synthesis of pharmaceuticals with light

06-Aug-2018 - A new synthesis method in organic chemistry enables the production of numerous pharmaceuticals without the use of toxic heavy metals. Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology in Jena (Leibniz HKI) discovered this reaction and subsequently developed ...

Bacteria produce gold by digesting toxic metals

01-Feb-2018 - High concentrations of heavy metals, like copper and gold, are toxic for most living creatures. This is not the case for the bacterium C. metallidurans, which has found a way to extract valuable trace elements from a compound of heavy metals without poisoning itself. One interesting side-effect: ...

A Protective Shield against the Heavy Metal Uranium

The glutathione molecule aids in cellular resilience

07-Jun-2016 - Microorganisms can better withstand the heavy metal uranium when glutathione is present, a molecule composed of three amino acids. Scientists from the German based Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of Bern in Switzerland have now proven this resilience by closely ...