Life Sciences and Chemistry

Researchers in Oxford University’s Department of Inorganic Chemistry have devised a novel method for separating polar organic compounds, providing a useful alternative to the usual methods of chromatography or crystallisation.

The separation of mixtures of organic and inorganic compounds is of considerable importance in most areas of industrial and academic chemistry. In particular, isomeric mixtures are often difficult to separate and can require highly specialised techniques.

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Researchers in Oxford University’s Department of Inorganic Chemistry have devised a method for the selective separation and recovery of nucleoside phosphates from complex reaction mixtures using Layered Double Hydroxide (LDH) materials.

Nucleoside phosphates are used extensively in industry as intermediates or additives in nutraceutical and pharmaceutical preparation, as well as in medical and separation science. In particular many new antiviral agents are based on nucleosides. Supplying the

A Duke University Medical Center neurobiologist has identified key mechanisms by which the intricate “protein machines” that govern the strength of connections among neurons build and remodel themselves to adjust those connections.

Such remodeling of the connections, called synapses, is central to the establishment of brain pathways during learning and memory, said the scientists. Also, malfunction of the synaptic machinery might well play a fundamental role in the pathology of neurodegenera

The technique that helped revolutionize modern biology by making the mouse a crucible of genetic manipulation and a window to human disease has been extended to human embryonic stem (ES) cells.

In a study published today (Feb. 10) in the online editions of the journal Nature Biotechnology, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports that it has developed methods for recombining segments of DNA within stem cells.

By bringing to bear the technique, known in

Fat is not only a much-discussed food substance. Fat can also function as a signal substance in the body and activate a special receptor in the cells of important organs like the heart and liver. This opens opportunities for new ways of explaining the genesis of diabetes, a disease that is strongly associated with obesity.

This new role for fat was discovered by a team of researchers headed by Professor Christer Owman and Associate Professor Björn Old of the Wallenberg Neuroscience Center at

Imagine information stored on something only a hundredth the size of the next generation computer chip–and made from nature’s own storage molecule, DNA. A team led by Richard Kiehl, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota, has used the selective “stickiness” of DNA to construct a scaffolding for closely spaced nanoparticles that could exchange information on a scale of only 10 angstroms (an angstrom is one 10-billionth of a meter). The technique allows the assembly