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Category: chemistry

Silicon Is Coming to Smartphone Batteries for a Big Energy Boost

A novel lithium-ion battery that uses silicon in its anodes may have the highest energy density of any battery currently commercially available. Its manufacturer, Enovix, says it has shipped the new battery to a leading smartphone company for a debut in mobile phones later this year.

Many of the lithium-ion batteries that power everything from mobile devices to electric cars use graphite in their anodes. However, for decades, researchers have investigated silicon as a replacement for this graphite. In theory, silicon offers roughly 10 times the energy density of graphite in lithium-ion batteries.

“Basically, graphite holds on to lithium using holes in its structure,” says Raj Talluri, CEO of Enovix. “In contrast, with silicon in the anodes—usually a silicon oxide or a silicon carbide—lithium actually chemically combines with the silicon to form a new material. This lets a silicon-based anode hold on to much more lithium than graphite during charging. When the battery discharges, the silicon material goes back to its original state.”

Abstract: Helping alveolar macrophages live to fight another day during viral #pneumonia:

Joseph P. Mizgerd & team provide a Commentary on Christina Malainou et al.: https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI185390

2Department of Virology, Immunology, and Microbiology.

3Department of Medicine, and.

4Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

A viable therapeutic target pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

This issue’s cover features work by Adrian M. Seifert & team on Nectin-4’s connection to poor outcome and immune suppression in patients with PDAC, and targeting Nectin-4 with the antibody-drug conjugate enfortumab vedotin inhibited tumor growth in PDAC organoids:

The cover image shows high Nectin-4 immunohistochemistry staining (brown) in human PDAC.

1Department of Visceral, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.

2National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), Dresden, Germany.

3German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany.

Scientists Say They’ve Made a Pill That Could Let You Live to 150

They’ve been promising eternal youth since the first snake-oil salesman bottled spring water. Now a Chinese biotech startup says it might actually have the chemistry right. Lonvi Biosciences claims its new pill could stretch human life to 150 years.

The Shenzhen-based company, backed by China’s booming longevity sector, says it has developed a pill that could theoretically extend human life to 150 years. The company’s formula targets so-called “zombie cells”—aging cells that refuse to die, triggering inflammation and age-related disease. “This is not just another pill. This is the Holy Grail,” said CEO Ip Zhu, describing the capsule as a breakthrough that could make extreme longevity a reality.

The drug’s key ingredient, procyanidin C1 (PCC1), is derived from grape seeds and has shown lifespan extension in lab animals. In Lonvi’s own mouse trials, the treatment reportedly increased overall lifespan by 9.4 percent and extended life by 64 percent from the first day of treatment. “Living to 150 is definitely realistic,” said Chief Technology Officer Lyu Qinghua in an interview with The New York Times. “In a few years, this will be the reality.”

Overlooked molecule points to new treatments for drug resistant fungal infections

Fungal infections kill millions of people each year, and modern medicine is struggling to keep up. But researchers at McMaster University have identified a molecule that may help turn the tide—butyrolactolA, a chemical compound that targets a deadly, disease-causing fungi called Cryptococcus neoformans.

Infections caused by Cryptococcus are extremely dangerous. The pathogen, which can cause pneumonia-like symptoms, is notoriously drug-resistant, and it often preys on people with weakened immune systems, like cancer patients or those living with HIV. And the same can be said about other fungal pathogens, like Candida auris or Aspergillus fumigatus—both of which, like Cryptococcus, have been declared priority pathogens by the World Health Organization.

Despite the threat, though, doctors have only three treatment options for fungal infections.

A new atlas could help guide researchers studying neurological disease

Functioning brain cells need a functioning system for picking up the trash and sorting the recycling. But when the cellular sanitation machines responsible for those tasks, called lysosomes, break down or get overwhelmed, it can increase the risk of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other neurological disorders.

“Lysosomal function is essential for brain health, and mutations in lysosomal genes are risk factors for neurodegenerative diseases,” said Monther Abu-Remaileh, a Wu Tsai Neuro affiliate and an assistant professor of chemical engineering in the Stanford School of Engineering and an assistant professor of genetics in the Stanford School of Medicine.

The trouble is, scientists aren’t sure exactly how lysosomes do their work, what’s going wrong with lysosomes that leads to neurodegeneration—or even in which cell types neurodegenerative disease begins. There might even be other lysosomal disorders yet to be discovered.

Study reveals why light-driven chemical reactions often lose energy before bond-breaking

Florida State University researchers have discovered a pathway within a certain type of molecule that limits chemical reactions by redirecting light energy. The study could enable development of more efficient reactions for pharmaceuticals and other products.

The researchers examined ligand-to-metal photocatalysts. Ligands are a molecule bound to a larger molecule; in this case, to a metal. Photocatalysts are materials that use light to accelerate a chemical reaction. Theoretically, these molecules should be readily able to harness light energy toward chemical reactivity. But in experiments, chemists only found inefficient reactions.

The FSU research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, shows why: The molecule quickly moves into a less energetic state before the absorbed energy can break chemical bonds. The energy is drained too quickly into the wrong place, so bond-breaking is limited.

Molecular surgery: ‘Deleting’ a single atom from a molecule

Inserting, removing or swapping individual atoms from the core of a molecule is a long-standing challenge in chemistry. This process, called skeletal editing, can dramatically speed up drug discovery or be applied for upcycling of plastics. Consequently, the field is witnessing a surge of interest spanning from fundamental chemical research to applications in the pharmaceutical industry.

A group of researchers have now extended the scope of skeletal editing to the scale of just a single molecule. Such a level of precision in skeletal editing is unprecedented, and this may open a new route to obtain elusive molecules.

The team of researchers are active at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden; IBM Research Europe—Zurich, Switzerland; and CiQUS at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. In a recent article published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, they demonstrate how, in a controlled manner, they can selectively remove a single oxygen atom from an organic molecule using the sharp tip of a scanning probe microscope.

Experiment clarifies cosmic origin of rare proton-rich isotope selenium-74

Researchers have reported new experimental results addressing the origin of rare proton-rich isotopes heavier than iron, called p-nuclei. Led by Artemis Tsantiri, then-graduate student at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) and current postdoctoral fellow at the University of Regina in Canada, the study presents the first rare isotope beam measurement of proton capture on arsenic-73 to produce selenium-74, providing new constraints on how the lightest p-nucleus is formed and destroyed in the cosmos.

The team published the results in Physical Review Letters in a paper titled “Constraining the Synthesis of the Lightest Nucleus 74 Se”. The work involved more than 45 participants from 20 institutions in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

A central question in nuclear astrophysics concerns how and where chemical elements are formed. The slow and rapid neutron-capture processes account for many intermediate-mass and heavy nuclei beyond iron through repeated neutron captures followed by radioactive decays until stable isotopes are reached.

AI method advances customized enzyme design

Enzymes with specific functions are becoming increasingly important in industry, medicine and environmental protection. For example, they make it possible to synthesize chemicals in a more environmentally friendly way, produce active ingredients in a targeted manner or break down environmentally harmful substances.

Researchers from Gustav Oberdorfer’s working group at the Institute of Biochemistry at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), together with colleagues from the University of Graz, have now published a study in Nature describing a new method for the design of customized enzymes.

The technology called Riff-Diff (Rotamer Inverted Fragment Finder–Diffusion) makes it possible to accurately and efficiently build the protein structure specifically around the active center instead of searching for a suitable structure from existing databases. The resulting enzymes are not only significantly more active than previous artificial enzymes, but also more stable.

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