With their loved ones sometimes deployed far away from home, potentially in harm’s way, the families of soldiers face challenging circumstances that can place a strain on everyday life. (more…)
UD-developed smart gels deliver medicine on demand
Researchers at the University of Delaware have developed a “smart” hydrogel that can deliver medicine on demand, in response to mechanical force.
Over the past few decades, smart hydrogels have been created that respond to pH, temperature, DNA, light and other stimuli. (more…)
Baltimore, MD— One classical question in developmental biology is how different tissue types arise in the correct position of the developing embryo. While one signaling pathway that controls this process has been well described, unexpected findings from a team led by Carnegie’s Steven Farber reveal the importance of polyunsaturated fatty acid metabolism in this process. It is published online December 12 in Developmental Cell.
Fatty acids serve as sources of energy, the building materials of cellular membranes, and as signals for sending messages between cells. Enzymes are needed to activate free fatty acids so that they are useful for cellular processes. The enzymes that perform this function are called acyl-CoA synthetases, often shortened to ACS. (more…)
University research advance inspired by UD Nobel Prize winner Richard Heck
A chemical reaction reported by University of Delaware assistant professor Donald Watson and his laboratory group has set the chemistry world abuzz for its creativity and potential utility.
Watson and his team in the UD Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry have developed a chemical reaction that converts carbon-hydrogen bonds to carbon-silicon bonds using the metal palladium as a catalyst, yielding an important new tool for building molecules. The potential industrial applications are broad, ranging from the manufacture of medicines to plastics. (more…)
*Carolyn Bertozzi’s Kavli Lecture Highlights Promise of Biorothogonal Chemistry and Its Links to Basic Research From the Past*
“Bioorthogonal chemistry is literally chemistry for life,” said Carolyn Bertozzi, an internationally acclaimed leader and founder of this emerging and highly promising field of science that could fundamentally change drug development and disease diagnostics. In delivering the Kavli Foundation Innovations in Chemistry Lecture at this year’s Spring Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in San Diego, Bertozzi described how her own ground-breaking research made use of experiments nearly a century ago by two German chemists whose work was driven primarily by scientific curiosity as opposed to the more problem-driven research of today.
Bertozzi is a senior faculty scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the T.Z. and Irmgard Chu Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California (UC) Berkeley. She is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). The Kavli Foundation is a philanthropic organization that supports basic scientific research. Its ACS lectures are designed to address “the urgent need for vigorous, outside the box thinking by scientists.” (more…)
Scientists are reporting new evidence that capsaicin, the stuff that gives chili peppers their kick, may cause weight loss and fight fat buildup by triggering certain beneficial protein changes in the body.
