One step synthesis of C-dots by microwave mediated caramelization of poly(ethylene glycol)

A rapid, simple and one step microwave mediated method for synthesizing C-dots using poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) as a precursor and passivating agent is reported. The C-dots possessed low cytotoxicity, were amenable to separation by electrophoresis, photostable and entered cancer cells, making them suitable candidates for bioimaging and biolabelling.     

Emerging Implications of Nonmammalian Cytosine Deaminases on Cancer Therapeutics

Nonmammalian cytosine deaminases (CDs) have been investigated for last 30?years in the context of cancer therapy. The therapeutic effect of CD is based on its ability to catalyze the conversion of nontoxic prodrug 5-fluorocytosine (5FC) into the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5FU) by deamination of the number 4 carbon of 5FC. This deamination property of CD has been explored to develop innovative therapeutic approach for treatment of cancer. A general overview is needed for the identification of efficient cytosine deaminases for potential use in cancer therapy. In this review, we have discussed about nonmammalian CDs for a variety of prodrug gene/enzyme therapy applications with several recent examples. Finally, we have provided a prospective on the future aspects of CDs and their applications in cancer therapy.     

Mesomorphic properties and orientational order parameter of 4-pentyl cyclohexyl-4-(4-propyl cyclohexyl) benzoate from X-ray diffraction studies

The mesogen 4-pentyI cyclohexyl-4-(4-propyl cyclohexyl) benzoate, molecular formula C₂₇H₄₂O₂, has been investigated at different temperatures using X-ray and texture studies. For X-ray studies an arrangement for taking X-ray photographs at different temperatures has been designed and fabricated. In addition to the nematic phase the mesogen exhibits two smectic phases. On the basis of microscopic investigation and X-ray studies the two smectic phases exhibited have been identified as the SmE and SmB phases. From X-ray patterns, the average intermolecular distances and apparent molecular length/layer thickness for the different mesomorphic phases have been determined as a function of temperature. Orientational order parameters (P2) and (P4) of the sample ordered by a magnetic field have been determined in the SmB phase.     

Annihilator varieties, adduced representations, Whittaker functionals, and rank for unitary representations of GL(n)

In this paper, we study irreducible unitary representations of ${GL_{n}(\mathbb{R})}$ and prove a number of results. Our first result establishes a precise connection between the annihilator of a representation and the existence of degenerate Whittaker functionals, thereby generalizing results of Kostant, Matumoto and others. Our second result relates the annihilator to the sequence of adduced representations, as defined in this setting by one of the authors. Based on those results, we suggest a new notion of rank of a smooth admissible representation of ${GL_{n}(\mathbb{R})}$ , which for unitarizable representations refines Howe’s notion of rank. Our third result computes the adduced representations for (almost) all irreducible unitary representations in terms of the Vogan classification. We also indicate briefly the analogous results over complex and p-adic fields.     

Concentration polarization in translocation of DNA through nanopores and nanochannels

In this Letter we provide a theory to show that high-field electrokinetic translocation of DNA through nanopores or nanochannels causes large transient variations of the ionic concentrations in front and at the back of the DNA due to concentration polarization (CP). The CP causes strong local conductivity variations, which can successfully explain the nontrivial current transients and ionic distributions observed in molecular dynamics simulations of nanopore DNA translocations as well as the transient current dips and spikes measured for translocating hairpin DNA. Most importantly, as the future of sequencing of DNA by nanopore translocation will be based on time-varying electrical conductance, CP, must be considered in experimental design and interpretation--currently these studies are mostly based on the incomplete pore conductance models that ignore CP and transients in the electrical conductance.     

Capillary pressure and contact line force on a soft solid

The surface free energy, or surface tension, of a liquid interface gives rise to a pressure jump when the interface is curved. Here we show that a similar capillary pressure arises at the interface of soft solids. We present experimental evidence that immersion of a thin elastomeric wire into a liquid induces a substantial elastic compression due to the solid capillary pressure at the bottom. We quantitatively determine the effective surface tension from the elastic displacement field and find a value comparable to the liquid-vapor surface tension. Most importantly, these results also reveal the way the liquid pulls on the solid close to the contact line: the capillary force is not oriented along the liquid-air interface, nor perpendicularly to the solid surface, as previously hypothesized, but towards the interior of the liquid.     

MEMES: Machine learning framework for Enhanced MolEcular Screening

In drug discovery applications, high throughput virtual screening exercises are routinely performed to determine an initial set of candidate molecules referred to as “hits”. In such an experiment, each molecule from a large small-molecule drug library is evaluated in terms of physical properties such as the docking score against a target receptor. In real-life drug discovery experiments, drug libraries are extremely large but still there is only a minor representation of the essentially infinite chemical space, and evaluation of physical properties for each molecule in the library is not computationally feasible. In the current study, a novel Machine learning framework for Enhanced MolEcular Screening (MEMES) based on Bayesian optimization is proposed for efficient sampling of the chemical space. The proposed framework is demonstrated to identify 90% of the top-1000 molecules from a molecular library of size about 100 million, while calculating the docking score only for about 6% of the complete library. We believe that such a framework would tremendously help to reduce the computational effort in not only drug-discovery but also areas that require such high-throughput experiments.

A novel machine learning framework based on Bayesian optimization for efficient sampling of chemical space. The framework is able to identify 90% of top-1000 hits by only sampling 6% of the complete dataset containing ∼100 million compounds.     

pH-Based Detection of Target Analytes in Diluted Serum Samples Using Surface Plasmon Resonance Immunosensor

Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology - Detection of minute quantities of target antigens in serum samples (consisting of a mixture of proteins/biomolecules) can be achieved by enhancement of the...