Structure and bioactivity of an insecticidal trans-defensin from assassin bug venom.

Disulfide-rich peptides such as defensins play diverse roles in immunity and ion channel modulation, as well as constituting the bioactive components of many animal venoms. We investigated the structure and bioactivity of U-RDTX-Pp19, a peptide previously discovered in venom of the assassin bug Pristhesancus plagipennis. Recombinant Pp19 (rPp19) was found to possess insecticidal activity when injected into Drosophila melanogaster.

Experimental Determination of α Widths of ^{21}Ne Levels in the Region of Astrophysical Interest: New ^{17}O+α Reaction Rates and Impact on the Weak s Process.

The efficiency of the weak s process in low-metallicity rotating massive stars depends strongly on the rates of the competing ^{17}O(α,n)^{20}Ne and ^{17}O(α,γ)^{21}Ne reactions that determine the potency of the ^{16}O neutron poison. Their reaction rates are poorly known in the astrophysical energy range of interest for core helium burning in massive stars because of the lack of spectroscopic information (partial widths, spin parities) for the relevant states in the compound nucleus ^{21}Ne. In this Letter, we report on the first experimental determination of the α-particle spectroscopic factors and partial widths of these states using the ^{17}O(^{7}Li,t)^{21}Ne α-transfer reaction.

^{138}Ba(d,α) Study of States in ^{136}Cs: Implications for New Physics Searches with Xenon Detectors.

We used the ^{138}Ba(d,α) reaction to carry out an in-depth study of states in ^{136}Cs, up to around 2.5 MeV. In this Letter, we place emphasis on hitherto unobserved states below the first 1^{+} level, which are important in the context of solar neutrino and fermionic dark matter (FDM) detection in large-scale xenon-based experiments.

Compact capillary high performance liquid chromatography system for pharmaceutical on-line reaction monitoring.

Due to their size, conventional high performance liquid chromatographs (HPLCs) are difficult to place close to a reaction vessel within a pharmaceutical manufacturing or development site. Typically, long transfer lines are required to move sample from the reactor to the HPLC for analysis and high solvent usage is required. However, herein a compact and modular separation system has been developed to enable co-location of an HPLC with a small-scale reactor for reaction monitoring in the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients.