Band 8, Heft 3

Changes in technology have affected the way we teach, the way students learn and the way chemical research is conducted. Rapid changes in technology have greatly improved laboratory instrumentation, data collection and treatment and have greatly enabled Green Chemistry. This chapter will trace the career of a 4-year college professor who began teaching as a high school teacher in the sixties and transcended to the collegiate level. She will describe how changes in technology changed the way we teach chemistry and how this has enabled us to introduce green chemistry at all levels to our students. This chapter will highlight changes in technology which have enabled educators both in teaching chemistry labs and conducting research to employ green chemistry.

Novel materials possessing physical, mechanical, and chemical properties similar to those found in vivo provide a potential platform for building artificial microenvironments for tissue engineering applications. Poly(glycerol sebacate) is one such material. It has tunable mechanical properties within the range of common tissue, and favorable cell response without surface modification with adhesive ligands, and biodegradability. In this chapter, an overview of the material is presented, focusing on synthesis, characterization, microfabrication, use as a substrate in in vitro mammalian cell culture, and degradation characteristics.

In vivo tracking of administered cells chosen for specific disease treatment may be conducted by diagnostic imaging techniques preceded by cell labeling with special contrast agents. The most commonly used agents are those with radioactive properties, however their use in research is often impossible. This review paper focuses on the essential aspect of cell tracking with the exclusion of radioisotope tracers, therefore we compare application of different types of non-radioactive contrast agents (cell tracers), methods of cell labeling and application of various techniques for cell tracking, which are commonly used in preclinical or clinical studies. We discuss diagnostic imaging methods belonging to three groups: (1) Contrast-enhanced X-ray imaging, (2) Magnetic resonance imaging, and (3) Optical imaging. In addition, we present some interesting data from our own research on tracking immune cell with the use of discussed methods. Finally, we introduce an algorithm which may be useful for researchers planning leukocyte targeting studies, which may help to choose the appropriate cell type, contrast agent and diagnostic technique for particular disease study.

Reaction sequences where more bonds are sequentially formed (cascade reactions) may be started either by a stoichiometric or by a catalytic reagent, and proceed in an enantio- diastereo- or non-stereo- selective manner. A wide variety of such strategies has been developed, including both stoichiometric and catalytic ones. Within the widely developed cascade reactions field, this chapter is not meant to be omni-comprehensive, but to offer an as much as possible complete overview on organocatalytic stereoselective methods. We embrace the more general definitions by Tietze and Denmark, considering as cascade reactions all those one-pot processes that involve two or more bond formations, where each subsequent step is enabled by a structural change caused by the previous one. We will include both two- and multi-component reactions where one or more organocatalysts may be responsible either for all or just some of the occurring transformations. Organocascades will be reported according to the number of involved catalytic cycles. In the following paragraphs, only cascade reactions that are stereoselective by means of a chiral catalyst will be considered. It will be shown that multiple possibilities, relying on different catalysis modes, are available to achieve the same reaction sequence.

The thermodynamic properties of Bi-Sn were studied at 600 and 900 K using a quasi-lattice theory. After successful fitting of Gibbs free energies of mixing and thermodynamic activities, the fitting parameters were used to investigate the enthalpy of mixing, the entropy of mixing, concentration fluctuations, Warren-Cowley short-range-order parameter, surface concentrations and surface tensions of the binary systems. Positive and symmetrically shaped enthalpies of mixing were observed in all composition range, while negative excess entropies of mixing were observed. Bi-Sn showed a slight preference for like-atoms as nearest neighbours in all composition range. The nature of atomic order in Bi-Sn at 600 and 900 K appeared similar. The highest tendency for homocoordination exists at composition where mole fraction of Bi is about 40%. It was also observed that Bi (whose surface tension is lower than that of Sn) has the highest surface enrichment in the Bi-Sn systems. Unlike many previous applications of the quasi-lattice theory where constant values were used to approximate coordination numbers, temperature and composition-dependent coordination numbers were applied in this work.

The use of molecular mechanics (MM) in understanding the energy and target of a drug, its structures, and properties has increased recently. This is achieved by the formulation of a simple MM energy equation, which represents the sum of the different energy interactions, often referred to as “forcefields” (FFs). The concept of FFs is now widely used as one of the fundamental tools for the in silico prediction of drug-target interactions. To generate more accurate predictions in the in silico drug discovery projects, the solvent effects are often taken into account. This review seeks to present an introductory guide for the reader on the fundamentals of MM with special emphasis on the role of FFs and the solvation models.