Synthesis and preliminary biological evaluation of gabactyzine, a benactyzine-GABA mutual prodrug, as an organophosphate antidote.

Organophosphates (OPs) are inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase and have deleterious effects on the central nervous system. Clinical manifestations of OP poisoning include convulsions, which represent an underlying toxic neuro-pathological process, leading to permanent neuronal damage. This neurotoxicity is mediated through the cholinergic, GABAergic and glutamatergic (NMDA) systems.

Nuclear physics. Momentum sharing in imbalanced Fermi systems.

The atomic nucleus is composed of two different kinds of fermions: protons and neutrons. If the protons and neutrons did not interact, the Pauli exclusion principle would force the majority of fermions (usually neutrons) to have a higher average momentum. Our high-energy electron-scattering measurements using (12)C, (27)Al, (56)Fe, and (208)Pb targets show that even in heavy, neutron-rich nuclei, short-range interactions between the fermions form correlated high-momentum neutron-proton pairs.

Probing the repulsive core of the nucleon-nucleon interaction via the (4)He(e,e'pN) triple-coincidence reaction.

We studied simultaneously the (4)He(e,e'p), (4)He(e,e'pp), and (4)He(e,e'pn) reactions at Q(2)=2(GeV/c)(2) and x(B)>1, for an (e,e'p) missing-momentum range of 400 to 830  MeV/c. The knocked-out proton was detected in coincidence with a proton or neutron recoiling almost back to back to the missing momentum, leaving the residual A=2 system at low excitation energy. These data were used to identify two-nucleon short-range correlated pairs and to deduce their isospin structure as a function of missing momentum, in a region where the nucleon-nucleon (NN) force is expected to change from predominantly tensor to repulsive.

Hard two-body photodisintegration of 3He.

We have measured cross sections for the γ(3)He → pd reaction at photon energies of 0.4-1.4 GeV and a center-of-mass angle of 90°.

Convection-enhanced delivery of methotrexate-loaded maghemite nanoparticles.

Convection-enhanced delivery (CED) is a novel approach for delivering drugs directly into brain tumors by intracranial infusion, enabling the distribution of high drug concentrations over large tissue volumes. This study was designed to present a method for binding methotrexate (MTX) to unique crystalline, highly ordered and superparamagnetic maghemite nanoparticles via human serum albumin (HSA) coating, optimized for CED treatments of gliomas. Naked nanoparticles and HSA- or polyethylene glycol (PEG)-coated nanoparticles with/without MTX were studied.