Personalized Reusable Face Masks with Smart Nano-Assisted Destruction of Pathogens for COVID-19: A Visionary Road

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emergency has demonstrated that the utilization of face masks plays a critical role in limiting the outbreak. Healthcare professionals utilize masks all day long without replacing them very frequently, thus representing a source of cross-infection for patients and themselves. Nanotechnology is a powerful tool with the capability to produce nanomaterials with unique physicochemical and antipathogen properties. Here, how to realize non-disposable and highly comfortable respirators with light-triggered self-disinfection ability by bridging bioactive nanofiber properties and stimuli-responsive nanomaterials is outlined. The visionary road highlighted in this Concept is based on the possibility of developing a new generation of masks based on multifunctional membranes where the presence of nanoclusters and plasmonic nanoparticles arranged in a hierarchical structure enables the realization of a chemically driven and on-demand antipathogen activities. Multilayer electrospun membranes have the ability to dissipate humidity present within the mask, enhancing the wearability and usability. The photothermal disinfected membrane is the core of these 3D printed and reusable masks with moisture pump capability. Personalized face masks with smart nano-assisted destruction of pathogens will bring enormous advantages to the entire global community, especially for front-line personnel, and will open up great opportunities for innovative medical applications.     

Population Shuffling of Protein Conformations

Motions play a vital role in the functions of many proteins. Discrete conformational transitions to excited states, happening on timescales of hundreds of microseconds, have been extensively characterized. On the other hand, the dynamics of the ground state are widely unexplored. Newly developed high‐power relaxation dispersion experiments allow the detection of motions up to a one‐digit microsecond timescale. These experiments showed that side chains in the hydrophobic core as well as at protein–protein interaction surfaces of both ubiquitin and the third immunoglobulin binding domain of protein G move on the microsecond timescale. Both proteins exhibit plasticity to this microsecond motion through redistribution of the populations of their side‐chain rotamers, which interconvert on the picosecond to nanosecond timescale, making it likely that this “population shuffling” process is a general mechanism.     

Semi-Rigid Nitroxide Spin Label for Long-Range EPR Distance Measurements of Lipid Bilayer Embedded β-Peptides

β-Peptides are an interesting new class of transmembrane model peptides based on their conformationally stable and well-defined secondary structures. Herein, we present the synthesis of the paramagnetic β-amino acid β³-hTOPP (4-(3,3,5,5-tetramethyl-2,6-dioxo-4-oxylpiperazin-1-yl)-d -β³-homophenylglycine) that enables investigations of β-peptides by EPR spectroscopy. This amino acid adds to the, to date, sparse number of β-peptide spin labels. Its performance was evaluated by investigating the helical turn of a 3₁₄-helical transmembrane model β-peptide. Nanometer distances between two incorporated β³-hTOPP labels in different environments were measured by using pulsed electron/electron double resonance (PELDOR/DEER) spectroscopy. Due to the semi-rigid conformational design, the label delivers reliable distances and sharp (one-peak) distance distributions even in the lipid bilayer. The results indicate that the investigated β-peptide folds into a 3.25₁₄ helix and maintains this conformation in the lipid bilayer.     

Hochschild cohomology for periodic algebras of polynomial growth

We describe the dimensions of low Hochschild cohomology spaces of exceptional periodic representation-infinite algebras of polynomial growth. As an application we obtain that an indecomposable non-standard periodic representation-infinite algebra of polynomial growth is not derived equivalent to a standard self-injective algebra.     

Toughness enhancers for bone scaffold materials based on biocompatible photopolymers

Providing access to the benefits of additive manufacturing technologies in tissue engineering, vinyl esters recently came into view as appropriate replacements for (meth)acrylates as precursors for photopolymers. Their low cytotoxicity and good biocompatibility as well as favorable degradation behavior are their main assets. Suffering from rather poor mechanical properties, particularly in terms of toughness, several improvements have been made over the last years. Especially, thiol–ene chemistry has been investigated to overcome those shortcomings. In this study, we focused on additional means to further improve the toughness of an already established biocompatible vinyl ester‐thiol formulation, eligible for digital light processing‐based stereolithography. All molecules were based on poly(ε‐caprolactone) as building block and the formulations were tested regarding their reactivity and the resulting mechanical properties. They all performed well as toughness enhancer, ultimately doubling the impact resistance of the reference system. © 2018 The Authors. Journal of Polymer Science Part A: Polymer Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2019 , 57, 110–119     

Representation Type of Borel-Schur Algebras

Algebras and Representation Theory - In our previous work (Erdmann et al. J. Algebra Appl. 17(2),1850028, 2018), we found all Borel-Schur algebras of finite representation type. In the present...     

On clarification of haze in polypropylene

The mechanism of reducing light scattering in isotactic polypropylene (i‐PP), through the addition of so‐called clarifying agents, is studied with small‐angle light scattering (SALS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The clarifying agents used in this study depict monotectic phase behavior with i‐PP, crystallizing in a relatively narrow concentration range in a nanofibrillar network, providing an ultrahigh nucleation density in the i‐PP melt. It is found that the clarifying effect, a dramatically increased transparency and reduced haze, that occurs within the aforementioned additive concentration range, coincides with a change in morphology from strongly scattering spherulites to shish‐kebab‐like crystalline structures, as evidenced by in situ SALS measurements and confirmed by SEM images. A simple scaling law, relating the diameter of the shish‐kebab structures to the fibril diameter and volume fraction of the clarifying agent is proposed, suggesting that the performance of a (fibril‐forming) clarifying agent will improve by reducing the fibril diameter and/or increasing the volume concentration of the clarifying agent. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2016 , 54, 865–874     

Protein interactions in covalently attached dextran layers

Protein interactions with polymeric carbohydrates play an important role for application in chromatography, biomaterials and biophysics. In this study, we present a detailed morphological and functional characterization of covalently side-bound dextran layers by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) and reflectometric interference spectroscopy (RIfS). The surface chemistry was monitored step-by-step by ellipsometric characterization of the surface loading. Dextrans of various molecular masses (10–2000 kD) were immobilized leading to surface loadings between 3 and 8 ng mm⁻². The refractive indices of the covalently attached dextran layers under atmospheric conditions (n_D=1.51) were very close to the refractive index of a spin-coated dextran layer (n_D=1.52) indicating dense and homogeneous coverage achieved by the coupling chemistry. Under buffer solution, refractive indices between 1.34 and 1.365 and thicknesses between 20 and 40 nm of these dextran layers were determined. A dextran concentration in the hydrated layers of 0.05–0.21 g cm⁻³ was estimated from the refractive index. The density and the thickness of the hydrated layers increased with molecular mass of the dextran. Non-specific binding was strongly reduced by the dextran layers and decreased with increasing thickness and density of the layer. Specific antibody binding to haptens immobilized in the dextran layer lead to an increase of both the density and the thickness of the layers. Time resolved detection by RIfS indicated significant decrease of protein mobility in the dextran layer. From these results we conclude that the functional properties of dextran layers with respect to protein interactions are determined by their effective pore-size, which is controlled by the number of bonds, the surface loading and the concentration of charged groups in the polymer.