The 2012 Albert Lasker Special Achievement Award in Medical Science will be shared by Donald Brown and Tom Maniatis for their scientific work leading to the purification and study of single genes by physical and molecular biological methodologies. Brown and Maniatis are also recognized for their extraordinary commitment and generosity in promoting the careers of young scientists. The impact of ...

By using the Telospot assay, 27 different extracts of cyanobacteria were evaluated for telomerase inhibition. All extracts showed varying, but significant activity. We selected Microcystis aeruguinosa PCC 7806 to identify the active compound and a bioassay guided fractionation led us to isolate mixtures of sulfoquinovosyl diacylglycerols (SQDGs), which were identified by 2D NMR and MS/MS experi...

There are entries for the racemic alcohols 3 and 4, and also of enantiomerically pure 4. Our interest developed knowing the fact that pyrrolidine derivatives possess biological activities. For obtaining the aforementioned alcohols, our first approach was to prepare ketones 5a and 6 in the enantiomerically pure forms. In fact racemic 5 was prepared earlier in four steps by a tandem S N 2-Michael...

Selective potentiators of glutamate response at metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5 (mGluR5) have exciting potential for the development of novel treatment strategies for schizophrenia. A total of 1,382 compounds with positive allosteric modulation (PAM) of the mGluR5 glutamate response were identified through high-throughput screening (HTS) of a diverse library of 144,475 substances util...

Brookite is the least studied TiO2 photocatalyst due to the difficulties usually encountered in order to obtain it as a pure phase. In this review, a comprehensive survey of the different methods available for preparing brookite powders and films is reported. Attention has been paid both to the most traditional methods, such as hydrothermal processes at high temperatures and pressures, and to e...

A review of currently used methods for the synthesis and resolution of enantiomers of drugs and their precursors is presented. For the synthesis part the methods of diastereoselective as well as enantioselective synthesis are discussed, with particular consideration given to enantioselective catalysis with either metal complexes or biocatalysts. Desymmetrization processes are also included as m...

Dedicated to Professor Rolf Saalfrank on the occasion of his 70th birthday We have prepared a new bis(bipyridyl) ligand 1 based on a chiral 9,9′-spirobifluorene core in both enantiomerically pure forms. This ligand was found to undergo diastereoselective self-assembly to optically pure dinuclear coordination compounds upon coordination to copper(I) and silver(I) ions. Surprisingly, however, the...

Although lectin-reactive molecules in biomembranes are generally glycoproteins (1,2), lectins also bind glycolipids (3-9). For a detailed study of leetin-glycolipid interaction we required substances of defined structure. Because isolation of naturally occurring glycolipids is time consuming and only small quantities are generally obtained pure, we synthesized these compounds. In this paper we ...

The development of new approaches to obtain optically pure β-hydroxy esters is an important area in synthetic organic chemistry since they are precursors of other high value compounds. Herein, the kinetic resolution of racemic β-hydroxy esters using a planar-chiral DMAP derivative catalyst is presented. Following this procedure, a range of aromatic β-hydroxy esters was obtained in excellent sel...