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Category: chemistry – Page 69

Child walks again after receiving experimental treatment for rare genetic condition

In what experts are calling a “dream come true,” scientists used a recent biochemical discovery to help an 8-year-old boy with a rare genetic condition regain mobility.

Researchers from NYU Langone demonstrated, in a study published in Nature on Wednesday, how a chemical precursor to a commonly available enzyme, CoQ10, can help brain cells overcome a rare genetic condition that severely hobbles cells’ energy production process. Without treatment, the boy’s condition is known to deteriorate rapidly and could be fatal.

NYU Langone researchers have helped an 8-year-old boy regain mobility using an experimental treatment.

Need a new 3D material? Build it with DNA

When the Empire State Building was constructed, its 102 stories rose above midtown one piece at a time, with each individual element combining to become, for 40 years, the world’s tallest building. Uptown at Columbia, Oleg Gang and his chemical engineering lab aren’t building Art Deco architecture; their landmarks are incredibly small devices built from nanoscopic building blocks that arrange themselves.

“We can now build the complexly prescribed 3D organizations from self-assembled nanocomponents, a kind of nanoscale version of the Empire State Building,” said Gang, professor of chemical engineering and of applied physics and at Columbia Engineering and leader of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials’ Soft and Bio Nanomaterials Group at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

“The capabilities to manufacture 3D nanoscale materials by design are critical for many emerging applications, ranging from light manipulation to neuromorphic computing, and from catalytic materials to biomolecular scaffolds and reactors,” said Gang.

A mysterious mineral in asteroid Ryugu may rewrite planetary history

Serendipitous discovery of djerfisherite in Ryugu grain challenges current paradigm of the nature of primitive asteroids. A surprising discovery from a tiny grain of asteroid Ryugu has rocked scientists’ understanding of how our Solar System evolved. Researchers found djerfisherite—a mineral typically born in scorching, chemically reduced conditions and never before seen in Ryugu-like meteorites—inside a sample returned by Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission. Its presence suggests either Ryugu once experienced unexpectedly high temperatures or that exotic materials from other parts of the solar system somehow made their way into its formation. Like discovering a palm tree fossil in Arctic ice, this rare find challenges everything we thought we knew about primitive asteroids and the early mixing of planetary ingredients.

The pristine samples from asteroid Ryugu returned by the Hayabusa2 mission on December 6, 2020, have been vital to improving our understanding of primitive asteroids and the formation of the Solar System. The C-type asteroid Ryugu is composed of rocks similar to meteorites called CI chondrites, which contain relatively high amounts of carbon, and have undergone extensive aqueous alteration in their past.

A research team at Hiroshima University discovered the presence of the mineral djerfisherite, a potassium-containing iron-nickel sulfide, in a Ryugu grain. The presence of this mineral is wholly unexpected, as djerfisherite does not form under the conditions Ryugu is believed to have been exposed to over its existence. The findings were published on May 28, 2025, in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science.

Ultra-processed foods linked to higher chronic disease risks, even at low intake

Even in moderation, consumption of ultra-processed foods is linked with measurable increases in risk for chronic diseases, according to research from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Processed meat, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), and trans fatty acids (TFAs) were associated with an increased disease risk, such as type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease (IHD), and colorectal cancer.

Multiple previous studies have linked ultra-processed foods, particularly processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, and trans fatty acids, with elevated chronic disease risks. Estimates suggest that diets high in processed meat contributed to nearly 300,000 deaths worldwide in 2021, while diets rich in sugar-sweetened beverages and trans fats accounted for millions of disability-adjusted life years.

Processed meats preserved through smoking, curing or chemical additives often contain compounds such as N-nitroso agents, and heterocyclic amines—compounds implicated in tumor development.

Targeting MXenes for sustainable ammonia production

In a hunt for more sustainable technologies, researchers are looking further into enabling two-dimensional materials in renewable energy that could lead to sustainable production of chemicals such as ammonia, which is used in fertilizer.

This next generation of low-dimensional materials, called MXenes, catalyzes the production of air into ammonia for foods and transportation for high-efficiency energy fertilizers.

MXenes has a wide range of possibilities that allow for highly flexible chemical compositions, offering significant control over their properties.

Microrobots shaped and steered by metal patches could aid drug delivery and pollution cleanup

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have created a new way to build and control tiny particles that can move and work like microscopic robots, offering a powerful tool with applications in biomedical and environmental research.

The study, published in Nature Communications, describes a new method of fabrication that combines high-precision 3D printing, called two-photon lithography, with a microstenciling technique. The team prints both the particle and its stencil together, then deposits a thin layer of metal—such as gold, platinum or cobalt—through the stencil’s openings. When the stencil is removed, a metal patch remains on the particle.

The particles, invisible to the naked eye, can be made in almost any shape and patterned with surface patches as small as 0.2 microns—more than 500 times thinner than a human hair. The metal patches guide how the particles move when exposed to electric or magnetic fields, or chemical gradients.

Quantum battery device lasts much longer than previous demonstrations

Researchers from RMIT University and CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, have unveiled a method to significantly extend the lifetime of quantum batteries—1,000 times longer than previous demonstrations.

A quantum battery is a theoretical concept that emerged from research in and technology.

Unlike traditional batteries, which rely on , quantum batteries use quantum superposition and interactions between electrons and light to achieve faster charging times and potentially enhanced storage capacity.

When stem cells feel the squeeze, they start building bone

In a discovery that could reshape approaches to regenerative medicine and bone repair, researchers have found that human stem cells can be prompted to begin turning into bone cells simply by squeezing through narrow spaces.

The study suggests that the physical act of moving through tight, confining spaces, like those between tissues, can influence how stem cells develop. This could open new possibilities for engineering materials and therapies by guiding using physical, rather than chemical, signals.

The research was led by Assistant Professor Andrew Holle from the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Design and Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS), and the Mechanobiology Institute (MBI) at NUS, and was published on 8 May 2025 in the journal Advanced Science.

Hydrogen atom transfer method selectively transforms carboxylic acids using an inexpensive photocatalyst

Carboxylic acids are ubiquitous in bioactive organic molecules and readily available chemical building blocks. Carboxylic acids can be converted into carboxy radicals that can initiate versatile carbon–carbon and carbon–heteroatom bond formations, which are highly desirable for developing materials and pharmaceuticals. Currently, however, there are few applicable methods that use inexpensive catalysts.

To this end, researchers from WPI-ICReDD and University of Shizuoka have developed a facile hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) method that selectively transforms into carboxy radicals using xanthone, an inexpensive commercial organic ketone photocatalyst. This research was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

HAT converts substrates into radical species by removing a hydrogen atom and ketones are highly accessible, inexpensive, and known for HAT photocatalysis. However, selective HAT for carboxylic acids is challenging because the O–H bond is stronger than adjacent C–H bonds. Nonetheless, using the artificial force–induced reaction (AFIR) method, a developed at ICReDD, the authors identified xanthone as a promising ketone photocatalyst for selective O–H bond HAT.

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