HEalth professionals Responding to MEn for Safety (HERMES): Mixed methods evaluation of a pilot sexual health intervention for gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men experiencing domestic violence and abuse.

Background: Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) is a violation of human rights that damages the health and well-being of-gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM). Sexual health services provide a unique opportunity to assess for DVA and provide support. This study explores the feasibility and acceptability of Healthcare Responding to Men for Safety (HERMES), a pilot intervention aimed to improve the identification and referral of gbMSM experiencing DVA in a London NHS Trust.

"I have learned that nothing is given for free": an exploratory qualitative evaluation of a social norms edutainment intervention broadcast on local radio to prevent age-disparate transactional sex in Kigoma, Tanzania.

Background: Promising evidence supports the effectiveness of edutainment interventions in shifting norms to prevent violence against women and girls and other harmful practices, yet further research into mechanisms and pathways of impact is needed to inform intervention development, delivery and scale-up. This exploratory qualitative evaluation examined the feasibility and indications of change in attitudes, beliefs, norms and behaviours following the broadcast of a radio drama aired to prevent age-disparate transactional sex in Kigoma, Tanzania.

Methods: Over seven weeks, six episodes were broadcast on local radio weekly, between November and December 2021 in Kigoma, targeting adolescent girls (aged 13-15 years) and their caregivers.

Elucidation of the stereochemical mechanism of cystathionine γ-lyase reveals how substrate specificity constrains catalysis.

Pyridoxal phosphate (PLP)-dependent enzymes play essential roles in metabolism and have found applications for organic synthesis and as enzyme therapeutics. The vinylglycine ketimine (VGK) subfamily hosts a growing set of enzymes that play diverse roles in primary and secondary metabolism. However, the molecular determinates of substrate specificity and the complex acid-base chemistry that enables VGK catalysis remain enigmatic.

Biocatalytic asymmetric aldol addition into unactivated ketones.

Enzymes are renowned for their catalytic efficiency and selectivity, but many classical transformations in organic synthesis have no biocatalytic counterpart. Aldolases are prodigious C-C bond-forming enzymes, but their reactivity has only been extended past activated carbonyl electrophiles in special cases. To probe the mechanistic origins of this limitation, we use a pair of aldolases whose activity is dependent on pyridoxal phosphate.

Substrate-Multiplexed Assessment of Aromatic Prenyltransferase Activity.

An increasingly effective strategy to identify synthetically useful enzymes is to sample the diversity already present in Nature. Here, we construct and assay a panel of phylogenetically diverse aromatic prenyltransferases (PTs). These enzymes catalyze a variety of C-C bond forming reactions in natural product biosynthesis and are emerging as tools for synthetic chemistry and biology.