Category Archives: Chemistry
A generalized approach for NMR studies of lipid–protein interactions
Author: Francisco J. Blanco is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at CIC bioGUNE
Molecular interactions in cell membranes, particularly lipid-protein interactions in their hydrophobic core, are difficult to analyse and remain poorly characterised despite high relevance in physiological and pathological processes. […]
Early research on the origin of life. The Miller experiment.
“It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present.— But if (& oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm […]
High-performance supramolecular polymer from a simple molecule
Turning simple, individual molecules into complex, interconnected materials is the core of polymer chemistry. There is currently an increasing demand for materials with sophisticated properties such as self-healing and reusable adhesivity. However, achieving polymers with such functionalities generally demands higher […]
Geometric control of noble-metal nanoparticles
Author: Roberto D’Agosta is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at ETSF and the Department of Materials Physics in the Faculty of Chemistry at the UPV/EHU in San Sebastian. Francesca Baletto, senior lecturer at King’s College London, read and commented the manuscript. […]
Solvent-induced reversible clustering of gold nanoparticles
Many methods can be used to synthesise non-molecular inorganic solids. Some solids can be prepared by a variety of routes but others, especially those that are not thermodynamically stable, may be much more difficult to prepare and may require special […]
A new theory on the early building blocks of life
From nucleic acids to proteins and sugar chains, all life is made up of polymers, large molecules made up of sequences of small units called monomers. However, how these macromolecules first appeared on the surface of Earth is still controversial. […]
Putting the “rule of five” of drug research in context
Lipinski’s “rule of five”,1 very well known by medicinal chemists, has been defined as a set of rules, based on the number 5 -hence its name-, to evaluate the “drug-likeness” of a given molecule. The rules are:
– The […]
When we forget basic science. A jar is not a jug
Author: Adrián Matencio is pursuing a PhD at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology – A, Faculty of Biology, University of Murcia, where he graduated in biotechnology.
Applicability or some usefulness is the mantra of new I+D research. However, […]
The forgotten fraction in semicrystalline semiconducting polymers
A class of materials of utmost fundamental and applied interest is that of semicrystalline polymers. Actually, all solid synthetic polymers are, in general, partly crystalline and partly amorphous. The degree of crystallinity depends on the polymer structure and on how […]
Temperature dependence of rare earth valence has nothing to do with Kondo temperature
The scattering of conduction electrons in metals owing to impurities with magnetic moments is known as the Kondo effect, after Jun Kondo, who analysed the phenomenon in 1964. This scattering increases the electrical resistance and has the consequence that, in […]