Category Archives: Chemistry

Two U.S. scientists won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering how cell receptors involved in about half of all medicines work.

Robert J. Lefkowitz, 69, of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and Brian K. Kobilka, 57, of Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, will share the 8 million-krona ($1.2 million) award, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said at a news conference today.

They received the prize for their work on cells and sensibility, the academy said. The men exposed the inner workings of the largest and most pervasive family of cell receptors, known as G-protein-coupled.

Lodged in the fatty membranes that surround cells, they are the bodys mechanism to read its environment and play a role in sight, smell, taste, as well as pain tolerance and blood pressure. The receptors are the targets of about half of all medicines, the academy said.

Thanks to the work of Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka, we know what the receptor looks like in the finest molecular detail and we also know its just one of a huge family of receptors, Sven Lidin, a member of the Nobel committee for chemistry, said at the Stockholm news conference. Knowing how they work helps us to make better drugs with fewer side effects.

Lefkowitz, a professor of medicine at Duke and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, said he didnt have a clue he would be in the running for the prize.

I did not go to sleep last night waiting for this call, he said by telephone at the news conference. Im feeling very, very excited. I was fast asleep and the phone rang and I didnt hear it. I wear earplugs when I sleep and my wife gave me an elbow.

He was planning on going to the office and getting haircut today though the haircut will have to wait because he said it will be a crazy day at the office.

Last years Nobel in chemistry was awarded to Dan Shechtman for his discovery of quasicrystals, which changed the prevailing views about the atomic structure of matter.

Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900 and the prizes were first handed out the following year. The Swedish science academy chooses the chemistry and physics winners.

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U.S. Scientists Share Chemistry Nobel for Cell Receptors

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Two American scientists won the 2012 Nobel Prize for chemistry on Wednesday for research into how cells respond to external stimuli that is helping to develop better drugs to fight diseases such as diabetes, cancer and depression.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the 8 million crown ($1.2 million) prize went to Robert Lefkowitz, 69, and Brian Kobilka, 57, for discovering the inner workings of G-protein-coupled receptors, which allow cells to respond to chemical messages such as adrenaline rushes.

"Around half of all medications act through these receptors, among them beta blockers, antihistamines and various kinds of psychiatric medications," the committee said.

Working out better ways to target the receptors, known as GPCRs, is an area of keen focus for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Lefkowitz told a news conference by telephone he was asleep when the phone call came from Sweden.

"I did not hear it - I must share with you that I wear earplugs to sleep. So my wife gave me an elbow. So there it was, a total shock and surprise," he said.

Sven Lidin, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Lund University and chairman of the committee, told a news conference the discovery had been key in medical research.

"Knowing what they (the receptors) look like and how they function will provide us with the tools to make better drugs with fewer side effects," he added.

GPCRs are linked to a wide range of diseases, since they play a central role in many biological functions in the body, but developing new drugs to target them accurately has been difficult because of a lack of fundamental understanding as to how they function. Experts say the work of the Nobel Prize winners has opened the door to making better medicines.

Drugs targeting GPCRs have potential in treating illnesses involving the central nervous system, heart conditions, inflammation and metabolic disorders.

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Cell receptor research wins Americans chemistry Nobel

Research by Robert J. Lefkowitz, left, and Brian K. Kobilka has increased understanding of how cells sense chemicals.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Two American scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for their work revealing protein receptors that tell cells what is going on in and around the human body. Their achievements have allowed drug makers to develop medication with fewer side effects.

Research spanning four decades by Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka on "G-protein-coupled receptors" has increased understanding of how cells sense chemicals in the bloodstream and external stimuli like light, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the prize.

Lefkowitz began the research by tracking adrenalin receptors. The Nobel Prize announcement apparently set off some of the excitement hormone in his own body.

"I'm feeling very, very excited," he said in a predawn phone call from the United States to the committee in Stockholm, Sweden, which announced the winners at 5:45 a.m. ET.

"Did I even have any inkling that it was coming?" Lefkowitz said. "I'd have to say no."

He contacted Kobilka via a Skype video call to celebrate the news after receiving the call from the Nobel committee.

Lefkowitz, with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, began tracking cell receptors with radioactive substances in 1968.

In the 1980s, Kobilka, from Stanford University School of Medicine in California, joined the research to isolate the human gene that produces the adrenalin receptor, the academy said.

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Americans win Nobel Prize in chemistry

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/cfk3w8/comprehensive) has announced the addition of Elsevier Science and Technology's new book "Comprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry III, 15-Volume Set" to their offering.

Comprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry III (CHEC-III) is a new 15-volume reference work which provides the first point of entry to the literature for all scientists interested in heterocyclic ring systems. Since publishing in 1984, Comprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry (CHEC) has become the standard work on the subject, indispensable to all serious readers in the interdisciplinary areas where heterocycles are employed. CHEC-III builds on and complements the material in CHEC and CHEC-II and is designed to be used both alone and in conjunction with these two works. Written by leading scientists who have evaluated and summarized the most important data published over the last decade, Comprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry III will be an invaluable addition to the reference library of those working with heterocyclic ring systems.

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Research and Markets: Comprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry III, 15-Volume Set

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY--(Marketwire - Oct 9, 2012) - ThalesNano is proud to announce that sales of its novel flow reactors reached 700 complete systems. The number of publications based on these flow reactors has also surpassed 150. First launched in 2005, ThalesNano offers a range of microscale flow based reactors used in chemistry research. The 700th unit, an H-Cube Pro, will be installed in Shanghai at a perfume and flavor manufacturer.

"We have always been focused on enabling chemists to achieve results with their chemistry that they cannot do with standard equipment," said Richard Jones, CEO of ThalesNano Inc. "Whether it's bringing back hazardous chemistry, such as hydrogenation, to the lab or enabling chemists to access a wider parameter space to synthesize novel molecules, ThalesNano has developed reactors to do this safer, faster, and simpler. On behalf of all employees at ThalesNano, let me express our gratitude to our customers who have contributed to our success and presence on 6 continents and in more than 30 countries."

ThalesNano has recently launched the latest version of its best-selling R&D 100 award winner product, the H-Cube Pro. Several upcoming low cost reactor modules will expand the chemistry capabilities still further. Chemists can look forward to utilizing other gases such as carbon monoxide, oxygen, or Syngas on the same instrument they already use for their hydrogenations. The upcoming Phoenix Flow Reactor allows homogeneous reactions to be performed at higher than microwave temperatures and pressures. With the broadest range of flow reactors, ThalesNano is the "go to" company for flow chemistry.

More information about ThalesNano on our website: http://www.thalesnano.com or contact us directly at the following e-mail: info@thalesnano.com

About ThalesNano

ThalesNano is the world leader in bench-top flow chemistry reactors. The company has the widest portfolio of bench-top continuous process instruments for the pharmaceutical, biotech, fine chemical, petroleum/biofuel, and education markets. Its R&D 100 award winning H-Cube and scale-up system H-Cube Midi are used in hundreds of laboratories globally and have become the new industry standard for hydrogenation. Within three years from the original introduction of its flagship H-Cube product, 20 out of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies have introduced and adopted the technology.

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ThalesNano Cements Place as Flow Chemistry Market Leader With 700th Reactor

Oil palm plantation. Credit: Michael Thirnbeck

(Phys.org)New models are being developed to predict how changing land use in the tropics could affect future climate, air quality and crop production.

Ozone has a dual personality best described as "good up high, bad nearby": the atmospheric gas is both vital and potentially fatal for our health. High in the stratosphere, the gas filters sunlight and protects us from the damaging effects of ultraviolet light. At ground level, however, it causes respiratory problems and damages crops.

'Bad' ozone is formed by the reaction of sunlight on gases emitted from fossil fuel combustion, and its concentration is predicted to continue to rise unless global emissions can be reduced. But ozone levels are not only affected by emissions from cars, power stations and industrial processes; they are also affected by emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as isoprene, by plants.

"It's a complicated mechanism," explained Professor John Pyle from Cambridge's Department of Chemistry. "In pristine conditions, such as in the tropical rainforests, VOCs can reduce ozone levels. However, in the presence of oxides of nitrogen (NOx), which are pollutants produced during combustion of fossil fuels, VOCs can increase ozone levels."

In recent years, atmospheric chemists such as Pyle have been concerned that widespread changes in land-use in the tropics could have a dramatic impact on the formation of ozone, tipping the balance towards ozone production rather than destruction. Tropical rainforests currently account for over half of the world's forests and are biodiversity hotspots, but clearing for biofuels, crops and livestock is having a dramatic effect on their extent, with estimates suggesting that as much as 1.5 acres of rainforest are destroyed every second.

"Among the most widespread of tropical crops being planted in the cleared rainforests is the oil palm. In Malaysia, for instance, in just four decades the percentage of land covered by oil palm plantations has risen from 1% to 13% to meet an increasing demand for bioenergy and palm-oil-based consumer goods," added Pyle. "Is this change in land use resulting in unwelcome side-effects on ground-level ozone?"

Understanding this uncertainty has been a major focus of his team's research. By knitting together expertise in atmospheric chemistry with state-of-the-art climate models, the researchers aim to predict future concentrations of surface ozone with changing industrial emissions and land-use, from now until the end of this century.

"Our models rely on solving a set of differential equations that describe how reactants in the ozone pathway turn into products," explained researcher Dr Alex Archibald. "The complexity is potentially enormous. If we were to take into account all of the reactions of gases in the atmosphere, we would need to consider something like tens of millions of reactions. In reality, models can't cope with this level of complexity and so part of our work has been to determine the sensitivity of our models depending on the number of reactions we include."

PhD student Oliver Squire has been testing this sensitivity by comparing a range of commonly used chemistry mechanisms within the climate model. "The sign and magnitude of the ozone change due to a change in isoprene emissions in tropical regions show a strong dependence on the number of isoprene reactions included," he said. "This highlights the importance of correctly simplifying the full complexity of the atmosphere's chemistry".

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Climate chemistry and the tropics