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Category: chemistry – Page 243

A Potential Game Changer for Type 2 Diabetics — New Therapeutic Target Identified

A new discovery could be a game-changer for patients with type 2 diabetes. Researchers at the Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism Institute (DOMI) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered a therapeutic target for the preservation and regeneration of beta cells (β cells), the cells in the pancreas that produce and distribute insulin. The finding could also help millions of individuals throughout the globe by preventing insulin resistance. The study was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Nature Communications is a peer-reviewed, open access, multidisciplinary, scientific journal published by Nature Research. It covers the natural sciences, including physics, biology, chemistry, medicine, and earth sciences. It began publishing in 2010 and has editorial offices in London, Berlin, New York City, and Shanghai.

Prof. Dr. Gordan Lauc, Ph.D. — Founder & CEO, Genos; CSO, GlycanAge; Advancing The Glycosciences

(http://www.pharma.unizg.hr/en/about-us/staff/gordan–lauc, 450.html) is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, and Founder and CEO of Genos Ltd. (https://genos-glyco.com/), a research-intensive SME located in Zagreb, Croatia with core of expertise in molecular genetics and glycomics (The comprehensive study the entire complement of sugars, whether free or present in more complex molecules of an organism) and they perform contract research, contract analysis and service for numerous universities, hospitals and private individuals in Europe and overseas.

Prof. Dr. Lauc also is CSO of GlycanAge LTD (https://glycanage.com/), a company that has developed a ground-breaking test that analyses your personal glycobiome for insights in improving your health and monitoring your biological age, and Co-Director of the Human Glycome Project (https://human-glycome.org/).

Prof. Dr. Lauc graduated with a degree in molecular biology at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Science in 1992, and obtained Ph.D. in Biochemistry and the University of Zagreb in 1995. He got his postdoctoral training at the Institute for Medical Physics and Biophysics in Münster and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Since 1993 he has been employed at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry in Zagreb. Between 1998 and 2010 he was also part-time employed at the University of Osijek School of Medicine where he founded a DNA laboratory for the identification of war victims and also served as Vice-Dean for Science between 2001 and 2005.

Prof. Dr. Lauc is author of over 100 research papers published in international journals and six international patents. He was invited to lecture at numerous international conferences, elected for visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University and in 2011 also inducted in the prestigious Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. If 2012 he was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh and Adjunct Professor at the Edith Cowan University in Perth.

Prof. Dr. Lauc chaired a number of conferences, including the “European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop on Glycoscience” which resulted in the creation of the “European Glycoscience Forum”.

Prof. Dr. Lauc was a chairman of the committee that prepared Croatian National Action plan for the increased investment in research in development (2007), and was a member of the National Science Council between 2009 and 2013 and also and President of the National Council for Natural Sciences. He is a President-elect of the International Glycoscience Organization and member of the Steering Committee of the European Glycoscience Forum.

Continue reading “Prof. Dr. Gordan Lauc, Ph.D. — Founder & CEO, Genos; CSO, GlycanAge; Advancing The Glycosciences” | >

Ancient chemistry may explain why living things use ATP as the universal energy currency

A simple two-carbon compound may have been a crucial player in the evolution of metabolism before the advent of cells, according to a new study published October 4 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, by Nick Lane and colleagues of University College London, U.K. The finding potentially sheds light on the earliest stages of prebiotic biochemistry, and suggests how ATP came to be the universal energy carrier of all cellular life today.

ATP, , is used by all cells as an intermediate. During , energy is captured when a is added to ADP (adenosine diphosphate) to generate ATP; cleavage of that phosphate releases energy to power most types of cellular functions. But building ATP’s complex chemical structure from scratch is energy intensive and requires six separate ATP-driven steps; while convincing models do allow for prebiotic formation of the ATP skeleton without energy from already-formed ATP, they also suggest ATP was likely quite scarce, and that some other compound may have played a central role in conversion of ADP to ADP at this stage of evolution.

The most likely candidate, Lane and colleagues believed, was the two-carbon compound acetyl phosphate (AcP), which functions today in both bacteria and archaea as a metabolic intermediate. AcP has been shown to phosphorylate ADP to ATP in water in the presence of iron ions, but a host of questions remained after that demonstration, including whether other might work as well, whether AcP is specific for ADP or instead could function just as well with diphosphates of other nucleosides (such as guanosine or cytosine), and whether iron is unique in its ability to catalyze ADP phosphorylation in water.

The Physiological Effects of Dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale) in Type 2 Diabetes

The tremendous rise in the economic burden of type 2 diabetes (T2D) has prompted a search for alternative and less expensive medicines. Dandelion offers a compelling profile of bioactive components with potential anti-diabetic properties. The Taraxacum genus from the Asteraceae family is found in the temperate zone of the Northern hemisphere. It is available in several areas around the world. In many countries, it is used as food and in some countries as therapeutics for the control and treatment of T2D. The anti-diabetic properties of dandelion are attributed to bioactive chemical components; these include chicoric acid, taraxasterol (TS), chlorogenic acid, and sesquiterpene lactones. Studies have outlined the useful pharmacological profile of dandelion for the treatment of an array of diseases, although little attention has been paid to the effects of its bioactive components on T2D to date. This review recapitulates previous work on dandelion and its potential for the treatment and prevention of T2D, highlighting its anti-diabetic properties, the structures of its chemical components, and their potential mechanisms of action in T2D. Although initial research appears promising, data on the cellular impact of dandelion are limited, necessitating further work on clonal β-cell lines (INS-1E), α-cell lines, and human skeletal cell lines for better identification of the active components that could be of use in the control and treatment of T2D. In fact, extensive in-vitro, in-vivo, and clinical research is required to investigate further the pharmacological, physiological, and biochemical mechanisms underlying the effects of dandelion-derived compounds on T2D.

Keywords: type 2 diabetes, dandelion, chlorogenic acid, chicory acid, taraxasterol, sesquiterpene.

Abbreviations: ADP — adenosine diphosphate; AFLD — alcoholic fatty liver disease; AMPK — adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase; ATP — adenosine triphosphate; cAMP — cyclic adenosine monophosphate; CGA — chlorogenic acid; CoA — coenzyme A; CRA — chicory acid; DAG — diacylglycerol; DBD — DNA-binding domain; DNA — deoxyribonucleic acid; DPPH — 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl; Dw — dry weight; FOS — fructose oligosaccharide; G6P — glucose-6-phosphate; GDP — guanosine 5’-diphosphate; GLP-1 — glucagon-like peptide 1; GLUT2 — glucose transporter 2; GLUT4 — muscle glucose transporter protein 4; GPCR — G protein-coupled receptor; GTP — guanosine triphosphate; HNB — 2-hydroxy-5-nitrobenzenaledehyde; HPLC — high-pressure liquid chromatography; IC50 — half maximal inhibitory concentration; IDF — International Diabetes Federation; IDX-1 — islet duodenum homeobox 1; IL-1α — interleukin 1 alpha; INS-1E — rat insulinoma clonal beta-cell line; IR — insulin receptor; IRS-1 — insulin receptor substrate 1; Km — Michaelis constant; IP3 — inositol triphosphate; IRS-1 — insulin receptor substrate 1; LBD — ligand-binding domain; LC-DAD — liquid chromatography with (photo) diode array detection; LPS — lipopolysaccharide; MAPK — mitogen-activated protein kinase; NADH — nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide; NAFLD — non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; NF-κb — nuclear factor kappa B; NO — nitric oxide; PI3K — phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase; PKA — protein kinase A; PKC — protein kinase C; PPAR-γ — peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma; ROS — reactive oxygen species; RxR — retinoid X receptor; SEL — sesquiterpene lactones; SUR1 — sulphonylurea receptor 1; T2D — type 2 diabetes; TAG — triacylglycerol; TNF-α — tumor necrosis factor; TO — Taraxacum officinale; TS — taraxasterol; UPLC-MS/MS — ultra-performance liquid chromatography — tandem mass spectrometry; UV/VIS — ultraviolet visible; WHO — World Health Organization.

New Method Converts Fish Waste Into Valuable Nanomaterial in Seconds

This could enable for microgrids for sewage disposal and more lucrative businesses in waste reclaiming through making essentially computers with waste.

A synthesis procedure developed by NITech scientists can convert fish scales obtained from fish waste into a useful carbon-based nanomaterial. Their approach uses microwaves to break the scales down thermally via pyrolysis in less than 10 seconds, yielding carbon nano-onions with unprecedented quality compared with those obtained from conventional methods. Credit: Takashi Shirai from NITech, Japan.

Carbon-based nanomaterials are increasingly being used in electronics, energy conversion and storage, catalysis, and biomedicine due to their low toxicity, chemical stability, and extraordinary electrical and optical properties. CNOs, or carbon nano-onions, are by no means an exception. CNOs, which were first described in 1980, are nanostructures made up of concentric shells of fullerenes that resemble cages inside cages. They have several desired qualities, including a large surface area and high electrical and thermal conductivities.

Unfortunately, there are also significant disadvantages to using conventional methods to produce CNOs. Some call for harsh synthesis conditions, including high temperatures or vacuum, while others demand a great deal of time and energy. While certain methods may get beyond these limitations, they still need complicated catalysts, expensive carbon sources, or potentially hazardous acidic or basic conditions. This severely restricts CNOs’ potential.

Scientists Work Out How To Grow Zombie Mushrooms In A Lab — It Could Help Unlock New Virus-Fighting, Anti-Cancer Drugs

A team of scientists from Korea and Egypt have discovered a better way to grow insect-hunting fungi in a lab, according to research published Wednesday in Frontiers in Microbiology.

The fungi can be grown using grains like brown rice but they do not produce much cordycepin, prompting the researchers to suggest insects—which are a richer protein source and the fungi target in nature—as a better alternative. fungi, which infect and zombify insects, are difficult to cultivate but contain chemicals that could help fight cancer and viruses and possibly help treat Covid-19.

Antidote saved 100% of bees from lethal pesticide

Immunizing bees against pesticides.

‘We wanted to develop a strategy to detoxify managed pollinators and found we can do it by incorporating it into their food, senior author Minglin Ma, a biomaterials engineer at Cornell University told Chemistry World.

“Managed bee colonies are constantly in need of being replenished due to losses. This relieves the stress for beekeepers to meet the ever-increasing demand for pollination,” James Webb, also a co-author of the study, told Salon by email.

The pollen-like particle: The team created a pollen-sized microparticle with an enzyme designed to detoxify organophosphate pesticides. Usually, the bee’s crop (stomach) would break down the enzymes. But the researchers created a protective shell that allows it to pass through the crop unscathed.

Scientists Solve an Origin of Life Mystery

Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Cape Town may have found a solution to the mystery of how phosphorus came to be an essential component of life on Earth by recreating prehistoric seawater containing the element in a laboratory.

Their findings, which were published in the journal Nature Communications.

Nature Communications is a peer-reviewed, open access, multidisciplinary, scientific journal published by Nature Research. It covers the natural sciences, including physics, biology, chemistry, medicine, and earth sciences. It began publishing in 2010 and has editorial offices in London, Berlin, New York City, and Shanghai.

Michael Levin: Intelligence Beyond the Brain

*Intelligence Beyond the Brain: morphogenesis as an example of the scaling of basal cognition*

*Description:*
Each of us takes the remarkable journey from physics to mind: we start life as a quiescent oocyte (collection of chemical reactions) and slowly change and acquire an advanced, centralized mind. How does unified complex cognition emerge from the collective intelligence of cells? In this talk, I will use morphogenesis to illustrate how evolution scales cognition across problem spaces. Embryos and regenerating organs produce very complex, robust anatomical structures and stop growth and remodeling when those structures are complete. One of the most remarkable things about morphogenesis is that it is not simply a feed-forward emergent process, but one that has massive plasticity: even when disrupted by manipulations such as damage or changing the sizes of cells, the system often manages to achieve its morphogenetic goal. How do cell collectives know what to build and when to stop? Constructing and repairing anatomies in novel circumstances is a remarkable example of the collective intelligence of a biological swarm. I propose that a multi-scale competency architecture is how evolution exploits physics to achieve robust machines that solve novel problems. I will describe what is known about developmental bioelectricity — a precursor to neurobiology which is used for cognitive binding in biological collectives, that scales their intelligence and the size of the goals they can pursue. I will also discuss the cognitive light cone model, and conclude with examples of synthetic living machines — a new biorobotics platform that uses some of these ideas to build novel primitive intelligences. I will end by speculating about ethics, engineering, and life in a future that integrates deeply across biological and synthetic agents.