My university course has currently been focusing on nanochemistry and I think that this area is really fascinating. I have been researching nanotechnology online and have come across a few interesting stories but I will just summarise one.
When designing drugs, I'm sure that one of the most important factors is how you would get the drug into the bloodstream and where it needs to act specifically. If this hurdle is overcome then the drug will be more effective at low doses and would bring with it less side effects. Nanoparticals measure on the scale of one thousandth of a millimetre and hold hope in discovering the key to this problem since they are so small that they can slip into the cell in which the drug needs to act.
However, the problem arises not with the infiltrating into cells, but actually getting to the cells themselves. The body has, on average, eight pints of blood (four and a half litres) and in one minute nearly nine pints of blood is pumped around the body. At this rate, you can imagine that a tiny particle would find it hard to exit the main arteries when necessary if surrounded by this amount of blood powering through the body.
Giving some hope towards this method, it was found that the red blood cells pushed microspheres to the wall when their diameter was two or more microns (two thousandths of a millimetre). You may think, why not use microspheres then? But unfortunately microspheres are too large and fail as drug carriers. What next? Well, why not put nanospheres with microspheres and let them work together? This problem is still not overcome and scientists are working on other methods such as making nanoparticles of different shapes to see if this will increase their ability to escape from the hurrying red blood cells.
This problem really intrigues me and although there is not a solution yet I will be keeping a close eye on whether there are any developments in the future.
March 31, 2013
March 29, 2013
The brain behind the blog
So I thought that i'd explain myself a little bit.
I'm Charlotte, a 19 girl from south east London currently living in Bristol. I live in the city centre and am loving the vibrant city of Bristol. Being a student I do enjoy student things, such as grimey clubs playing house music as sweat drips off the ceiling (delightful I know), however I am extremely motivated and passionate about chemistry, hence why I have started up this blog.
I studied at an all girls school back in London for my whole school career, leaving with A-Levels in chemistry, biology and maths. I enjoyed school very much but could not wait to dive into university life and extend my chemistry knowledge even further into depth. Especially in a great city like Bristol.
At Bristol uni we currently have 3 hours of laboratory work each week. During the beginning of the first term back in October, I was absolutely bricking it. What if i accidentally blew something up or spilt corrosive chemicals all over me? However, now I am (nearly) completely comfortable with the responsibility in the lab and am looking forward to hopefully having the chance to work in the real chemistry world during my third year since my course offers doing an industrial placement.
However I have a long way to go before that and should really concentrate on revision for the five exams I have in summer - maybe it wasn't the best idea starting up this blog now...
I'm Charlotte, a 19 girl from south east London currently living in Bristol. I live in the city centre and am loving the vibrant city of Bristol. Being a student I do enjoy student things, such as grimey clubs playing house music as sweat drips off the ceiling (delightful I know), however I am extremely motivated and passionate about chemistry, hence why I have started up this blog.
I studied at an all girls school back in London for my whole school career, leaving with A-Levels in chemistry, biology and maths. I enjoyed school very much but could not wait to dive into university life and extend my chemistry knowledge even further into depth. Especially in a great city like Bristol.
At Bristol uni we currently have 3 hours of laboratory work each week. During the beginning of the first term back in October, I was absolutely bricking it. What if i accidentally blew something up or spilt corrosive chemicals all over me? However, now I am (nearly) completely comfortable with the responsibility in the lab and am looking forward to hopefully having the chance to work in the real chemistry world during my third year since my course offers doing an industrial placement.
However I have a long way to go before that and should really concentrate on revision for the five exams I have in summer - maybe it wasn't the best idea starting up this blog now...
Crystallography - Minus the crystal
X-ray crystallography is one of the most useful analytical methods in chemistry today. The x-ray fired at the structure diffracts in a certain way, dependent of the crystal lattice structure. There is only one major disadvantage for this analytical method. It only works on crystal structures.
As chemists, i'm sure we can understand the extensive crystallisation process. When you find that the new compound you have formed does not actually crystallise this may be disheartening. But do not fear! Scientists in Japan have recently discovered that this problem can be overcome.
The answer is a molecular cage. The molecular cage is a 'crystal sponge' formed from a metal centre and organic ligands that can hold structures which are not crystals. X-ray crystallography is then effective.
Amazingly, this is not the end. This method of a molecular cage has been developed so that single crystal diffraction (SCD) can be used, even on liquids. This can be done with as little as 0.1 micrograms of the stuff!
Of course, since the compounds being analysed like this are not crystals the results will not be as accurate as those for crystalline structures, however this method is revolutionary in my eyes and is extremely useful when used in conjunction with other analytical methods such as mass and NMR spectroscopy.
As chemists, i'm sure we can understand the extensive crystallisation process. When you find that the new compound you have formed does not actually crystallise this may be disheartening. But do not fear! Scientists in Japan have recently discovered that this problem can be overcome.
The answer is a molecular cage. The molecular cage is a 'crystal sponge' formed from a metal centre and organic ligands that can hold structures which are not crystals. X-ray crystallography is then effective.
Amazingly, this is not the end. This method of a molecular cage has been developed so that single crystal diffraction (SCD) can be used, even on liquids. This can be done with as little as 0.1 micrograms of the stuff!
Of course, since the compounds being analysed like this are not crystals the results will not be as accurate as those for crystalline structures, however this method is revolutionary in my eyes and is extremely useful when used in conjunction with other analytical methods such as mass and NMR spectroscopy.
March 28, 2013
There is no cure for Curiosity
So to kick off this blog I thought that i'd look at a possible breakthrough, not on Earth, but on the Red Planet.
The Mars Curiosity rover is about 10 feet long, 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall - about the size of a full grown male elephant. It has an extendable arm of 7 feet and weighs about 900 kilograms - much less than an elephant! The Curiosity rover landed on Mars on 5th August 2012 and since then has begun an adventure to find evidence of life.
It has been reported that the Mars Curiosity rover has stumbled upon a chemical environment that may have once supported life on Mars. The Mars rover drilled into the rock amongst an area named Yellowknife Bay which could have once been part of an ancient river system. Although difficult to believe, the sample of rock collected from Yellowknife Bay was analysed by x-ray diffraction and chromatography to reveal that the rock was composed of igneous minerals - a fifth of which was clay minerals. This could be evidence of water since the clay minerals found are a product of the reaction between water and the igneous minerals discovered. Analysis also showed that the oxidation state of the compounds was not constant. These characteristics, put together, could prove a habitat in which microbes could survive happily.
Although this may not be a breakthrough to all scientists since evidence of surface water and clay minerals has been discovered before, this is really encouraging so early on in the Mars Science Laboratory mission.
The Mars Curiosity rover is about 10 feet long, 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall - about the size of a full grown male elephant. It has an extendable arm of 7 feet and weighs about 900 kilograms - much less than an elephant! The Curiosity rover landed on Mars on 5th August 2012 and since then has begun an adventure to find evidence of life.
It has been reported that the Mars Curiosity rover has stumbled upon a chemical environment that may have once supported life on Mars. The Mars rover drilled into the rock amongst an area named Yellowknife Bay which could have once been part of an ancient river system. Although difficult to believe, the sample of rock collected from Yellowknife Bay was analysed by x-ray diffraction and chromatography to reveal that the rock was composed of igneous minerals - a fifth of which was clay minerals. This could be evidence of water since the clay minerals found are a product of the reaction between water and the igneous minerals discovered. Analysis also showed that the oxidation state of the compounds was not constant. These characteristics, put together, could prove a habitat in which microbes could survive happily.
Although this may not be a breakthrough to all scientists since evidence of surface water and clay minerals has been discovered before, this is really encouraging so early on in the Mars Science Laboratory mission.
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