Enzyme purification and sustained enzyme activity for pharmaceutical biocatalysis by fusion with phase-separating intrinsically disordered protein.

In recent decades, biocatalysis has emerged as an important alternative to chemical catalysis in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Biocatalysis is attractive because enzymatic cascades can synthesize complex molecules with incredible selectivity, yield, and in an environmentally benign manner. Enzymes for pharmaceutical biocatalysis are typically used in their unpurified state, since it is time-consuming and cost-prohibitive to purify enzymes using conventional chromatographic processes at scale.

Targeting colorectal cancer cells using AND-gated adaptor RevCAR T-cells.

Despite the success of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells especially for treating hematological malignancies, critical drawbacks, such as "on-target, off-tumor" toxicities, need to be addressed to improve safety in translating to clinical application. This is especially true, when targeting tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) that are not exclusively expressed by solid tumors but also on hea9lthy tissues. To improve the safety profile, we developed switchable adaptor CAR systems including the RevCAR system.

Presymptomatic Reduction of Individuality in the App Knockin Model of Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: One-third of the risk for Alzheimer's disease is explained by environment and lifestyle, but Alzheimer's disease pathology might also affect lifestyle and thereby impair the individual potential for health behavior and prevention.

Methods: We examined in mice how the App (NL-F) knockin mutation affects the presymptomatic response to environmental enrichment (ENR) as an experimental paradigm addressing nongenetic factors. We assessed the emergence of interindividual phenotypic variation under the condition that both the genetic background and the shared environment were held constant, thereby isolating the contribution of individual behavior (nonshared environment).

Targeting Acute Myeloid Leukemia Using the RevCAR Platform: A Programmable, Switchable and Combinatorial Strategy.

Clinical translation of novel immunotherapeutic strategies such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is still at an early stage. Major challenges include immune escape and disease relapse demanding for further improvements in CAR design. To overcome such hurdles, we have invented the switchable, flexible and programmable adaptor Reverse (Rev) CAR platform.

The mechanism of chemisorption of hydrogen atom on graphene: insights from the reaction force and reaction electronic flux.

At the PBE-D3/cc-pVDZ level of theory, the hydrogen chemisorption on graphene was analyzed using the reaction force and reaction electronic flux (REF) theories in combination with electron population analysis. It was found that chemisorption energy barrier is mainly dominated by structural work (∼73%) associated to the substrate reconstruction whereas the electronic work is the greatest contribution of the reverse energy barrier (∼67%) in the desorption process. Moreover, REF shows that hydrogen chemisorption is driven by charge transfer processes through four electronic events taking place as H approaches the adsorbent surface: (a) intramolecular charge transfer in the adsorbent surface; (b) surface reconstruction; (c) substrate magnetization and adsorbent carbon atom develops a sp(3) hybridization to form the σC-H bond; and (d) spontaneous intermolecular charge transfer to reach the final chemisorbed state.

Cytotoxicity and reactive oxygen species generation from aggregated carbon and carbonaceous nanoparticulate materials.

We have investigated the cytotoxicity and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation for indoor and outdoor soots: candle, wood, diesel, tire, and natural gas burner soots--along with surrogate black carbon, various multiwall carbon nanotube aggregate materials, TiO2 (anatase) and chrysotile asbestos as reference materials. All soots were observed utilizing TEM and FESEM to be composed of aggregated, primary spherules (20-80 nm diameter) forming complex, branched fractal structures. These spherules were composed of intercalated, turbostratic arrangements of curved graphene fragments with varying concentrations ofpolycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) isomers.

Intercalation of Re(phen)(CO)3Cl into zirconium phosphate: a water insoluble inorganic complex immobilized in a highly polar rigid matrix.

The intercalation of fac-tricarbonylchloro-1,10-phenanthrolinerhenium(i) (Re(phen)(CO)(3)Cl) within zirconium phosphate (ZrP) has been achieved using a hydrated ZrP phase that possesses six water molecules per formula unit. This intercalation occurs only at high solution molar ratios (Re : ZrP, 3 : 1) and is characterized by the emergence of a new phase in the X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) pattern with an interlayer distance of 15.6 A.

Cytotoxic effects of aggregated nanomaterials.

This study deals with cytotoxicity assays performed on an array of commercially manufactured inorganic nanoparticulate materials, including Ag, TiO(2), Fe(2)O(3), Al(2)O(3), ZrO(2), Si(3)N(4), naturally occurring mineral chrysotile asbestos and carbonaceous nanoparticulate materials such as multiwall carbon nanotube aggregates and black carbon aggregates. The nanomaterials were characterized by TEM, as the primary particles, aggregates or long fiber dimensions ranged from 2nm to 20microm. Cytotoxicological assays of these nanomaterials were performed utilizing a murine alveolar macrophage cell line and human macrophage and epithelial lung cell lines as comparators.