Quality assurance in research laboratories

During the last decade, it has become increasingly important that researchers demonstrate that research is conducted to the highest standards. The implementation of quality assurance for research laboratories will enable all fields of research and development to be judged impartially. There are no specific standards for research laboratories but where possible, existing standards can be adapted. This review is structured around two approaches. The first considers research to be a logical extension of testing, and it is assumed that testing standards can be applied methodically to each step in a research project. The second advocates a flexible approach, with research-specific criteria for assessing quality. The important papers published on this topic have been reviewed. The conclusions are that the general quality management approach, encompassed by the ISO 9000 series of standards with the emphasis on customer satisfaction and ‘fitness for purpose’, is suitable for implementing quality assurance in research laboratories.     

Research in an emerging “big science” discipline: the case of neutron scattering in Spain

Neutron scattering (NS) is a “big science” discipline whose research spans over a wide spectrum of fields, from fundamental or basic science to technological applications. The objective of this paper is to track the evolution of Spanish research in NS from a bibliometric perspective and to place it in the international context. Scientific publications of Spanish authors included in the Web of Science (WoS 1970–2006) are analysed with respect to five relevant dimensions: volume of research output, impact, disciplinary diversity, structural field features and internationalisation. NS emerges as a highly internationalised fast-growing field whose research is firmly rooted in Physics, Chemistry and Engineering, but with applications in a wide range of fields. International collaboration links -present in around 70% of the documents- and national links have largely contributed to mould the existing structure of research in the area, which evolves around major neutron scattering facilities abroad. The construction of a new European neutron source (ESS) would contribute to the consolidation of the field within the EU, since it will strengthen research and improve current activity.     

概念图在化学教学中应用的中外研究对比——基于CiteSpace的知识图谱可视化分析

以CiteSpace为工具,对2009-2018年10年间概念图在化学教学中应用的中外研究文献进行可视化的对比分析。研究表明:与国外研究相比,在应用范围上,国内缺少概念图在大学化学教学中应用的相关研究;在研究内容上,国内学者应加强概念图培养学生高阶思维能力及创造力的研究;从评估方式看,国内较少采用定性和定量相结合的评估方法。     

质谱技术在核酸研究领域的应用

质谱技术具有快速、准确、灵敏度高等优点,近年来在生物分析方面得到了广泛的应用.核酸作为生命的基本物质,一直是生命领域的研究热点,进展日新月异.而质谱方法也成为了科学家研究核酸的强有力工具,具有广阔的发展前景.本文介绍了核酸检测的质谱技术,并简要综述了质谱在核酸的高级结构研究、与小分子相互作用、DNA损伤与修饰等领域的应用,重点介绍了中国学者的研究成果.     

基于CiteSpace的实验队伍研究热点和趋势

将文献计量和知识图谱用于分析实验队伍的研究热点,使用CiteSpace软件分析相关文章的作者、单位、期刊、关键词等信息,研究实验队伍研究的热点和变化趋势. 研究表明,相关研究数量整体呈上升趋势. 全国该领域研究单位和学者众多,但缺乏权威核心研究团队. 近些年“科研仪器”“开放共享”“绩效考核”等关键词已经取代“实验室”“管理体制”“实验教学”等关键词成为了新的研究热点. 实验队伍的研究与“科研仪器”“开放共享”密不可分. 相比于科研仪器的增长,实验队伍仍存在数量不足和质量不强的问题.     

The Impact of Research Culture on Mental Health & Diversity in STEM

The onset of COVID-19, coupled with the finer lens placed on systemic racial disparities within our society, has resulted in increased discussions around mental health. Despite this, mental health struggles in research are still often viewed as individual weaknesses and not the result of a larger dysfunctional research culture. Mental health interventions in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academic community often focus on what individuals can do to improve their mental health instead of focusing on improving the research environment. In this paper, we present four aspects of research that may heavily impact mental health based on our experiences as research scientists: bullying and harassment; precarity of contracts; diversity, inclusion, and accessibility; and the competitive research landscape. Based on these aspects, we propose systemic changes that institutions must adopt to ensure their research culture is supportive and allows everyone to thrive.     

The impact of bacterial genomics on natural product research

"There's life in the old dog yet!" This adage also holds true for natural product research. After the era of natural products was declared to be over, because of the introduction of combinatorial synthesis techniques, natural product research has taken a surprising turn back towards a major field of pharmaceutical research. Current challenges, such as emerging multidrug-resistant bacteria, might be overcome by developments which combine genomic knowledge with applied biology and chemistry to identify, produce, and alter the structure of new lead compounds. Significant biological activity is reported much less frequently for synthetic compounds, a fact reflected in the large proportion of natural products and their derivatives in clinical use. This Review describes the impact of microbial genomics on natural products research, in particularly the search for new lead structures and their optimization. The limitations of this research are also discussed, thus allowing a look into future developments.     

仿生超疏水性表面的研究进展*

仿生超疏水性表面的研究是化学模拟生物体系研究中的一个新领域。荷叶等植物叶面的超疏水现象为我们在不同基底上制备仿生超疏水性表面提供了实践基础。本文给出荷叶等三种植物叶面的超疏水性和微观结构，阐述了仿生超疏水性表面的研究进展。     

Applications of combinatorial chemistry in the agrosciences

During the past ten years combinatorial chemistry developed from a powerful synthetic methodology, providing large libraries of usually simple new chemical entities, to a comprehensive strategy presently covering a multitude of technologies across the whole workflow from hit generation to lead optimization. Thus combinatorial chemistry had a major impact not only on the pharmaceutical research but also with some delay on the agrochemical research. The agrochemical discovery environment is different from that of the pharmaceutical research in that it relies mainly on whole organism screenings. This review summarizes some recent applications of combinatorial chemistry in the agrosciences, covering all the three major fields of research: fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides. The article focuses on libraries with published biological activities and thus highlights some characteristic features of successful agrochemical libraries, which may be fundamentally different from pharmaceutical libraries.     

Implementation of a quality management system in a public research centre

In recent decades, it has become increasingly important for public research centres to attract external clients, including government, private and public bodies and companies. They do this by demonstrating their research excellence. A research centre??s ability to provide professional research services can be assessed by competent technical bodies which verify that the research centre??s laboratories operate according to certain predetermined criteria or standards. Although there is no set of generally accepted standards, some regional accreditation bodies already offer accreditation assessment for the R&D laboratories which are in their territory. This article analyses the successful application of a quality management system in a public research centre employing 57 people including researchers, technicians and administrative staff. This system is based on the scheme of regional accreditation of industrial research laboratories which was inspired by ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 17025:2005 and set up by the regional authority. The overall aim of the management system is to monitor all of the industrial research and services which the centre offers to external users, such as government, private and public bodies and companies, and to guarantee that final products, usually technical reports and prototypes, respond to their needs. The accreditation applies to all of the activity of the research centre except for basic research. In this article, the critical factors influencing the success of the implementation of the management system are outlined together with benefits and opportunities. Weak points and problems are analysed, and the actions which were undertaken in order to prevent and manage problems are described.     

Solar-Driven Artificial Carbon Cycle

Constituting the artificial carbon cycle,for example,through recycling CO₂ and converting CH₄ to value-added fuels and chemicals with solar energy,offers a sustainable future for humankind to tackle the global environmental issues and energy crisis.However,significant bottlenecks remain in such photocatalytic conversion,mainly related to the reaction activity and product selectivity.Herein,we share our efforts and systematic research progress on addressing the double bottlenecks for achieving solar-driven artificial carbon cycle,with specifically focusing on the photocatalytic CO₂ and CH₄ conversion.We further elucidate the common fundamentals behind various designed photocatalytic materials systems.Toward future development,we highlight the opportunities and challenges in the research field.     

钻石对顶砧(Diamond Anvil Cell,DAC)高压产生技术及在高压条件下的光物理和光化学研究

高压作为一个重要的物理参量引入到科学研究的各个领域将会大大扩展研究的范围.本文介绍了一种简单安全的产生高压的技术和在高压条件下进行的一些光物理和光化学研究工作,并指出了今后在高压光物理和光化学研究领域的若干重要研究方向.     

Determination of Biological Oxidative Stress Using High Performance Liquid Chromatography with Electrochemical Detection (HPLC-ECD)

For three decades, high performance liquid chromatography has proven itself to be a powerful, flexible, and inexpensive tool for basic and clinical research. Recent advances in our understanding of disease have prompted a demand for more sensitive and selective methods of routine bioanalysis, particularly with respect to the determination of oxidative metabolites and biomarkers of oxidative stress. Multidimensional detectors utilizing coulometric arrays offer a solution to these research needs. The challenge to the bioanalyst is now to creatively apply HPLC-ECD technology to promising research and clinical enterprises.     

Current experiences with a quality management system for non-clinical research and development in pharmaceutical industry

Quality management is one of the most important issues in pharmaceutical research as it determines the validity and reliability of data, data and data evaluation being the central products of all research activities. In this business it is of outstanding importance to generate valid data for the assessment of drug development candidates to assure that the huge financial investment, which is based on such assessments, can be successful. Efficacy and safety of products are the final goals of such developments. Therefore, Merck/Merck Serono implemented an additional specifically developed quality management system that covers all areas and locations in Merck Serono Research that were not yet regulated by an existing regulatory quality management system, e.g. GLP (Good Laboratory Practice). The system is known under the name Merck Serono Research-Quality Management System (MSR-QMS). Thus, we describe the implementation process of MSR-QMS as a research specific quality management system in a global company. Furthermore, the implementation process in one specific research department will be highlighted. Using a practical example, the validation of an analytical instrument in a MSR-QMS-regulated research laboratory will be shown and compared to a validation process in a strictly GLP-regulated area. A summary of the experiences with the new quality system will complete this article and the advantages of high quality research results in industry will be discussed.     

Automated extraction of chemical structure information from digital raster images

Background  

To search for chemical structures in research articles, diagrams or text representing molecules need to be translated to a standard chemical file format compatible with cheminformatic search engines. Nevertheless, chemical information contained in research articles is often referenced as analog diagrams of chemical structures embedded in digital raster images. To automate analog-to-digital conversion of chemical structure diagrams in scientific research articles, several software systems have been developed. But their algorithmic performance and utility in cheminformatic research have not been investigated.     

《电催化及燃料电池》专辑序言

本专辑围绕电催化及燃料电池,收录了在相关研究领域具有丰富积累和影响的团队所撰写的 7 篇相关研究论文和综述,部分反映了我国在电催化剂的设计、合成方法和性能研究方面的研究进展,希望借助该专辑的出版,能使广大读者更深入地了解我国在这一领域的研究现状、研究趋势和存在的问题及挑战,推动我国电催化化学及新型燃料电池研究的进一步发展     

Random sequence libraries displayed on phage: identification of biologically important molecules

Phage display has become a widely used tool for the identification of proteins or peptides with affinity for a variety of biomolecules. The versatility, simplicity and cost effectiveness of this application has pervaded a wide variety of research areas. Although not without its limitations, phage display has provided a convenient methodology for obtaining ligands to study the function, structure and diagnostic or therapeutic potential of various macromolecules. This review highlights some recent research employing this technology that serves to illustrate its utility in various research and clinical applications.     

肽段化学衍生技术及其在质谱高灵敏度鉴定中的应用进展

鸟枪法串联质谱蛋白质鉴定是蛋白质组学研究中广泛采用的策略。然而,蛋白质组样品的高复杂性、宽动态范围分布使得低丰度肽段以及难于离子化肽段的质谱检测仍然存在着巨大的挑战。为了提高质谱检测灵敏度,通过化学衍生技术在多肽中引入易于离子化的小分子标签的方法获得了广泛关注。本文综述了近年来应用于多肽及其翻译后修饰的化学衍生试剂,侧重其在高灵敏度质谱分析中的应用进展,并展望了化学衍生技术的发展方向及其在蛋白质组学中的应用前景。     

有机化学中新兴领域的积极开拓者——黄耀曾先生

黄耀曾先生(1912-2002),我国著名的有机化学家,中国科学院院士,我国有机氟化学的先驱者,我国金属有机化学的开拓者。曾任中央研究院化学研究所助理研究员,副研究员,上海第一医学院助教,讲师。中国科学院上海有机化学研究所副研究员,研究员,博士生导师;上海有机化学研究所副所长,中国科学院化学部常委,副主任,中国化学会常务理事,《有机化学》主编和国际《杂原子化学》顾问编委。他的研究工作不仅推动了有机化学的发展,而且在我国国防建设和经济建设中也做出了突出贡献。曾获全国科学大会奖,国家科学技术进步一等奖,国防科技事业荣誉证书,国家自然科学三等奖及二等奖,第三世界科学院化学奖,何梁何利基金科学与进步奖等众多奖项。几十年的学术生涯中,黄耀曾先生在国内外著名学术刊物上共发表论文230余篇,著译9本,培养了博士20名,其中有的当选为院士,有的已成为重要的科研骨干和领导,有的是著名的企业家。