International Research Chemistry Awards

For the pharmaceutical industry, the majority of drug candidates explored in early development will never make it to clinical testing, let alone the market – and the point at which a candidate is abandoned may follow years of work and investment. Tackling this inefficiency, through better drug candidate identification, optimization and selection, could have a major positive impact on drug discovery, to the benefit of pharmaceutical companies and patients alike. At Pittcon 2018, taking place in February in Orlando, Florida, the pharmaceutical and technology industries will gather to hear about some of the major developments assisting effective early drug development. This includes topics such as automation. In recent years, this has played a major role, most significantly through the rise of high-throughput screening, and this will only develop further in years to come as robotic technologies advance. There will also be examples of how liquid chromatomegraphy-mass spectrometry has ...

Such testing is essential to ensure that the drug product maintains the desired efficacy and purity after transportation and storage. Various constituents of the pharmaceutical product, including the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), have the potential to undergo physical changes as the result of impact, vibration, abrasion, fluctuations temperature and humidity, microbiological changes or degradation reactions. Such changes may in turn reduce its potency, or lead to the formation of toxic degradation products. Rigorous testing is conducted to provide confidence that pharmaceutical products maintain post-production quality levels until the time they reach consumers. The results of stability testing are used to provide an indication on the product label of the time up to which it is guaranteed that the medicine will be safe and effective. Such testing is now governed by strict regulations, and stability testing data are required for a new drug or formulation to receive regulator...

The World Health Organization (WHO) published a report on the “Ten Threats to Global Health in 2019”, which highlighted the main threats to human health across the globe. The comprehensive list comprised an array of well-known threats including non-communicable diseases such as cancer , type-2-diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and stroke, as well as emerging threats such as antimicrobial resistance. It was, therefore, no surprise that Pittcon 2019 featured biomedical researchers from around the world who were working diligently to address these important health issues through the development of new techniques and technologies. The Pittcon 2019 Technical Program was held in Philadelphia from March 17th-21st, 2019 and showcased a range of biomedical methodologies which can provide improved diagnostics , better treatments, faster discovery and ultimately improved medical outcomes. Spectroscopic Approaches to Global Health Threats Spectroscopy is fast becoming one of the greatest ad...

  How Mathematics Informs Molecular Biology by Greg Watry April 04, 2024 For many, mathematics exists solely within the confines of a blackboard, a calculator or a textbook. But ask Javier Arsuaga and he’ll tell you that mathematics exists within us, right down to our DNA . “ Biology is very, very complicated and different areas of math can be applied to solve different types of problems in molecular biology ,” said Arsuaga, a professor with joint appointments in the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology . “Can we develop mathematical models that make biology more predictive? That’s where the richness of mathematics comes into play.” The study of our ever-shifting, tangle of a genome is called topology . Arsuaga harnesses this area of mathematics in tandem with machine learning and computational modeling to investigate how diseases, like breast cancer, spread. “You’re allowed to stretch DNA, you’re allowed to fold it, you’re allowed to c...

  When an unidentified respiratory disease began circulating the world in early 2020, molecular biology researchers suddenly found that their work was the world’s top story. Efforts to identify the mystery pathogen, to develop diagnostic tools, and ultimately, to vaccinate people against it, all depended upon molecular diagnostics techniques centered on the manipulation and amplification of genetic code. The spike in demand for the many reagents required for such work has been unprecedented, says Edvinas Paliulis, product manager for molecular biology at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Vilnius, Lithuania. But few were more sought after than deoxyribonucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs), from which DNA is assembled. dNTPs are one of molecular biology ’s most fundamental building blocks. In ordinary times, few molecular biologists give them much thought, taking their availability for granted. Running out of a staple laboratory reagent, however, can inspire a newfound appreciation for i...

  Scientists around the world continue to study greenhouse gas emissions and researchers at the Fritz Haber Institute discovered findings that could lead to the recycling of greenhouse gas that is produced when fossil fuels burn. There is now one less mystery in chemical production plants. For many decades industry has been producing methanol on a large scale from a mixture of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as hydrogen. An international team, including chemists from the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, has now clarified why the catalyst used in this process — copper and zinc oxide particles and a small portion of aluminum oxide — works so well. They also discovered why this reaction accelerator has to be produced in the tried and tested way. The researchers established that defects in an as yet unknown combination with mixing of copper and zinc oxide at the catalyst’s surface are the reason why the catalysts are so active. These findings...

  Chemists have been working to synthesize high-value materials from waste molecules for years. Now, an international collaboration of scientists is exploring ways to use electricity to streamline the process. In their study, recently published in Nature Catalysis , researchers demonstrated that carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, can be converted into a type of liquid fuel called methanol in a highly efficient manner. This process happened by taking cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) molecules and spreading them evenly on carbon nanotubes , graphene-like tubes that have unique electrical properties. On their surface was an electrolyte solution, which, by running an electrical current through it, allowed CoPc molecules to take electrons and use them to turn carbon dioxide into methanol. Using a special method based on in-situ spectroscopy to visualize the chemical reaction , researchers for the first time saw those molecules convert themselves into either methanol or carbon monoxide,...