Traditional medicinal chemistry paradigms, relying initially on ‘wet’ chemistry followed by screening and lead optimizations, are expensive and time consuming. On the other hand, initial in silico screening that guides the synthesis and screening of selected compounds has proven to be a better approach to accelerate drug discovery and reduce the cost of the discovery phase. The Special Focus is...

We study in this work the processing of NaNbO3 ceramics prepared in a single thermal treatment of highly reactive precursors obtained by mechanical activation of different reagents, aiming to determine optimum conditions for piezoelectric ceramics production. Pressure-less sintering at 1200oC leads to dense ceramics (<5% porosity) with poor mechanical stability, unsuitable for practical uses. D...

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are of concern internationally. In certain regions of the world, the percentage of counterfeit pharmaceuticals present in the consumer marketplace is troubling. For this reason, active testing programs are in place, and they tend to rely on classical analysis methods such as chromatography and wet chemistry. These methods can be time-consuming, labor intensive, and t...

In this work, the Coulomb explosion of the octamer water cluster has been studied employing a theoretical approach. Instead of the usual methodology that makes use of classical molecular dynamics, time-dependent density functional theory has been applied to tackle the problem. This method explicitly accounts for the laser field and thus does not impose any constraint on the interaction between ...

Ferroelectric nanostructures are promising building blocks for advanced electromechanical devices. In this paper, we report a hydrothermal synthesis of PbTiO3 nanoring and nanoring-nanowire hybrid structures. Evolution of the nanoring structure was suggested to be caused by the self-directed assembly of PbTiO3 nanoparticles, where polarization of the ferroelectric nanoparticles might direct the...

We evaluated cellular responses to polymer-treated gold nanorods, which were synthesized using the standard wet-chemistry method that utilizes hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). The nanorod dispersions were coated with either polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) or polyethylene glycol (PEG). Two sizes of nanorods were tested, with optical responses peaking at 628 and 773 nm. The cells were from ...

Biomaterials are substances manufactured for medical purposes in direct contact with the tissues of organisms. Prior to their use, they are tested to determine their usefulness and safety of application. Hydroxyapatites are used in medicine as a bony complement because of their similarity to the natural apatite therein. Thanks to their bioactivity, biocompatibility, stability and non-toxicity h...

Traditionally, the generation of nanoparticles for technological applications has been mostly performed by classical wet chemistry or lithographic methods, and their size has been commonly determined in situ by electron microscopy techniques. Advances in aerosol technology over the past 30 years have provided methods that enable the generation and measurement of nanosize building blocks, and ha...