New Method Turns Tons of Wine Waste into Useful Chemicals

Italian scientists have devised an innovative and economically feasible biorefinery that can squeeze more chemicals out of the mountains of grape waste produced during wine production.

Last year around 28 billion litres of wine were produced globally—enough to fill over eleven thousand Olympic sized swimming pools. But after pressing the last of the juice from the grape, a whole lot of skins and seeds are left—around 5 million tons of the stuff.

Traditionally this waste, known as pomace, is redistilled to produce spirits such as grappa. But changes in EU policy have reduced the subsidies given to distillers in an attempt to get more from this resource. Though useful chemicals such as polyphenols (natural antioxidants used in cosmetics and preservatives) or methane-rich biogas can be extracted from red grape pomace, you’d be hard pressed to turn a profit from existing single-product valorisation processes.

Raise a glass then to Lorenzo Bertin and colleagues at the University of Bologna, who have developed a multi-purpose biorefinery which not only produces polyphenols, but fatty acids, biopolymers, and biomethane too. Using supercritical carbon dioxide, the team extracted the useful polyphenols and sugars, before using anaerobic digestion to produce other useful compounds such as fatty acids. The leftover solid waste underwent further microbial treatment to produce methane, whilst any remaining liquid waste was aerobically fermented to produce environmentally friendly polymeric materials. Bertin’s biorefinery is striking for the sheer range of products it is able to extract from a single integrated process—making this green approach much more industrially viable

REF: scientificamerican.com

Bacteriophages generate electricity under pressure

Piezoelectric(the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials (such as crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA and various proteins) in response to applied mechanical stress.) generators convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. For applications in human implants, these generators must be made from non-toxic, biocompatible materials. To this end, Yoon-Hwae Hwang from the Pusan National University and co-workers successfully employed M13 bacteriophage nanopillars – formed by ejecting phages into a template – as building blocks to make nanogenerators. Similar to squashing a spring, applying a perpendicular load to the nanogenerators produced electricity. The vertical phage pillars in the device improved output voltage compared to a lateral alignment because of higher elasticity along the axial direction of the bacteriophage DNA.

The performance was improved by bioengineering. Substituting four negatively-charged glutamates for alanine on the phage genome increased the dipole moment of the protein, almost doubling the electrical output of the generator compared to the unaltered DNA. Tuning the generator further tripled the output and meant the bacterial nanogenerator could light up an LCD display with only pressure.

REF: rsc.org, wikipedia

Colour's Of Flame Test

REF: compoundinterest.com

The Nobel Prize Laureate Richard Heck Dies At 84

American scientist Dr. Richard F. Heck, a 2005 Wallace Carothers awardee and 2010 Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry, died on Oct. 10, Saturday in Manila, Philippines.

Heck, along with Japanese scientists Ei-ichi Negishi of Purdue University in Indiana and Akira Suzuki of Hokkaido University in Japan, won the Nobel for successfully cross coupling carbon molecules using palladium as a catalyst.

Dubbed the Heck Reaction, this groundbreaking discovery led to breakthroughs in drug development. It played a vital role in creating new types of drugs for cancer, asthma, HIV, migraine headaches and other diseases.

The Heck Reaction also helped improve the method of DNA sequencing by allowing organic dyes to bind with DNA bases. The process he discovered is also currently used to produce various consumer, electronic and industrial products, ranging from sunscreens to computer monitors.

Thomas Colacot, a specialist in the field of chemistry describes this process as "the reaction of the 21st century."

Nancy M. Targett, acting president of the University of Delaware, where Heck worked for 18 years and later became professor emeritus, recognized his contribution.

"His groundbreaking work that was saluted by the Nobel Prize Committee demonstrates how scientific inquiry can have a profound effect on everyday lives of us all," Targett said.

Heck, however, suffered for years from diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and slight dementia. Two private nurses took turns in caring for him in his home in Quezon City.

REF: techtimes.com

Chemical Compounds Name Based On Their Shape

Barrelene	Barrel
Basketane	Basket
Churchane	Church
Cubane	Cube.
Dodecahedrane	Dodecahedron
Fenestrane	Window pane motif
Housane	House
Ladderane	Ladder
Olympiadane	Olympic rings
Olympicene	Olympic Flag(Ring)
Penguinone	Penguin
Prismane	Prism
Quadratic acid	Square
Tetrahedrane	Tetrahedron.

REF : wikipedia.com

Transforming all donated blood into a universal type

Every day, thousands of people need donated blood. But only blood without A- or B-type antigens, such as type O, can be given to all of those in need, and it’s usually in short supply. Now researchers are making strides toward fixing the situation. In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, they report an efficient way to transform blood types A and B into a neutral type that can be given to any patient.
Stephen G. Withers and colleagues note that currently, blood transfusions require that the blood type of the donor match that of the recipient.side effects, and could even die. Since blood type O can be
given to anyone because it doesn’t provoke an immune reaction, researchers have spent years searching for a way to convert types A and B into and unreactive type. Current methods of enzymatic removal of the terminal N-acetylgalactosamine or galactose, the sugars that distinguish blood type, are inefficient. Withers’s team investigated ways to boost the enzymes’ activity.
The researchers altered one of those enzymes and improved its ability to remove type-determining sugars by 170- fold, rendering it antigen-neutral and more likely to be accepted by patients, regardless of their blood type. In addition to making it easier to provide blood transfusions, the researchers say their advance could potentially allow organ and tissue transplants from donors who would otherwise be mismatched. Read more about the research: “Toward Efficient Enzymes for the Generation of Universal Blood through Structure-Guided Directed Evolution,” Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2015, 137 (17), pp 5695–5705.

REF: InChemistry Journal (ACS Publications)

Drug Delivery Technique To By Pass Blood- Brain Barrier

Researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School and Boston University have successfully shown neuroprotection in a Parkinson's mouse model using new techniques to deliver drugs across the naturally impenetrable blood-brain barrier. Their findings, published inNeurosurgery, lend hope to patients around the world with neurological conditions that are difficult to treat due to a barrier mechanism that prevents approximately 98 percent of drugs from reaching the brain and central nervous system.

"We are developing a platform that may eventually be used to deliver a variety of drugs to the brain," said senior author Benjamin S. Bleier, M.D., of the department of otolaryngology at Mass. Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School. "Although we are currently looking at neurodegenerative disease, there is potential for the technology to be expanded to psychiatric diseases, chronic pain, seizure disorders and many other conditions affecting the brain and nervous system down the road."

Using nasal mucosal grafting, researchers delivered glial derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), a therapeutic protein in testing for treating Parkinson's disease, to the brains of mice. They showed through behavioral and histological data capture that their delivery method was equivalent to direct injection of GDNF -- the current gold standard for delivering this drug in Parkinson's disease despite its traumatic nature and high complication rates -- in diffusing drugs to the brain.

The researchers chose to test their delivery method with GDNF because the therapy has been shown to delay and even reverse disease progression of Parkinson's disease in pre-clinical models. The study was funded by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF).

"Brain diseases are notoriously difficult to treat due to the natural protections the body builds against intrusion," said Jamie Eberling, PhD, senior associate director of MJFF research programs. "Dr. Bleier's group has identified a potential avenue to pass that barrier, and we look forward to the next stage of research to further test its utility in people with Parkinson's disease ."

Nasal mucosal grafting is a technique regularly used in the ENT field to reconstruct the barrier around the brain after surgery to the skull base. ENT surgeons commonly use endoscopic approaches to remove brain tumors through the nose by making a window through the blood-brain barrier to access the brain. Once they have finished the treatment, they use adjacent nasal lining to rebuild the hole in a permanent and safe way. The safety and efficacy of these methods have been well established through long-term clinical outcomes studies in the field, with the nasal lining protecting the brain from infection just as the blood brain barrier has done.

Dr. Bleier saw an opportunity to apply these techniques to the widespread clinical dilemma of delivering drugs across the barrier to the brain and central nervous system. By functionally replacing a section of the blood-brain barrier with nasal mucosa, which is more than 1,000 times more permeable than the native barrier, surgeons may create a "screen door" to allow for drug delivery to the brain and central nervous system.

The technique has the potential to benefit a large population of patients with neurodegenerative disorders, where there remains a specific unmet need for blood-brain penetrating therapeutic delivery strategies.

"We see this expanding beyond Parkinson's disease, as there are multiple diseases of the brain that do not have good therapeutic options," Dr. Bleier said. "It is a platform that opens doors for new discovery and could enable drug development for an underserved population."

REF: sciencedaily.com