Designed, pH-reversible synthetic protein cage

Designed, pH-reversible synthetic protein cage

In this study published in Macromolecular Rapid Communications, a team of researchers from Centre for Programmable Biological Matter (Durham University), Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology and NSRC SOLARIS lead by prof. Jonathan Heddle designed a programmable artificial protein cage build from TRAP protein, that is sensitive to pH and can be disassembled on demand.

The rational design and production of a novel series of engineered protein cages are presented, which have emerged as versatile and adaptable platforms with significant applications in biomedicine. These protein cages are assembled from multiple protein subunits, and precise control over their interactions is crucial for regulating assembly and disassembly, such as the on-demand release of encapsulated therapeutic agents. 

This approach employs a homo-undecameric, ring-shaped protein scaffold with strategically positioned metal binding sites. These engineered proteins can self-assemble into highly stable cages in the presence of cobalt or zinc ions. Furthermore, the cages can be disassembled on demand by employing external triggers such as chelating agents and changes in pH. Interestingly, for certain triggers, the disassembly process is reversible, allowing the cages to reassemble upon reversal or outcompeting of triggering conditions/agents. 

This work offers a promising platform for the development of advanced drug delivery systems and other biomedical applications.

Read more on SOLARIS website

Image: Artistic representation of the designed protein cage geometry

Credit: Izabela Czernecka

Brookhaven’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2024

Brookhaven’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2024

Lab celebrates a year of scientific successes, from creating the biggest bits of antimatter to improving qubits, catalysts, batteries, and more!

UPTON, N.Y. — With one-of-a-kind research facilities leveraged by scientists from across the nation and around the world, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory is a veritable city of science. Each year brings discoveries, from the scale of subatomic particles to the vastness of Earth’s atmosphere and the cosmos, that have the potential to power new technologies and provide solutions to major societal challenges. Here, the Lab presents, in no particular order, its top 10 discoveries of 2024 … plus a few major Brookhaven Lab milestones.

Heaviest antimatter nucleus

Antimatter sounds exotic, but it really does exist — just not for long. This year, scientists studying collisions of atomic nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) — an “atom smasher” that recreates the conditions of the early universe — discovered the heaviest antimatter nucleus ever detected. It’s composed of four antimatter particles: an antiproton, two antineutrons, and a particle called an antihyperon. It lasts only a fraction of a second before decaying into other particles. To find it, physicists from RHIC’s STAR collaboration searched through particles streaming from billions of collisions to find just 16 of the rare “antihyperhydrogen-4” particles. There used to be lots of antimatter, back when the universe first formed, but when antimatter meets ordinary matter, the two self-destruct. The ability to create new antimatter particles today, like these heavy antimatter nuclei, gives scientists new ways to test for matter-antimatter differences that might explain why the universe is made only of matter. 

Low-temp, direct conversion of natural gas to liquid fuel

Brookhaven Lab chemists engineered a highly selective catalyst that can convert methane, a major component of natural gas, into methanol, an easily transportable liquid fuel, in a single, one-step reaction. This direct process for methane-to-methanol conversion runs at a temperature lower than required to make tea and exclusively produces methanol without additional byproducts. That’s a big advance over more complex traditional conversions that typically require three separate reactions, each under different conditions, including vastly higher temperatures. The simplicity of the system could make it particularly useful for tapping “stranded” natural gas reserves in isolated rural areas, far from the costly infrastructure of pipelines and chemical refineries, and without the need to transport high-pressure, flammable liquified natural gas. The team made use of tools at two DOE Office of Science user facilities at Brookhaven Lab, the Center for Functional Nanomaterials and the National Synchrotron Light Source II. They are exploring ways to work with entrepreneurial partners to bring the technology to market.

Plants’ sugar-sensing machinery

Proteins are molecular machines, with flexible pieces and moving parts. Understanding how these parts move helps scientists unravel the function that a protein plays in living things — and potentially how to change its effects. This year, a team led by Brookhaven Lab biochemists working with colleagues from DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory discovered how protein machinery in plants controls whether the plants can grow and make energy-intensive products such as oil — or instead put in place a series of steps to conserve precious resources. The researchers showed how the molecular machinery is regulated by a molecule that rises and falls with the level of sugar, the product of photosynthesis and plants’ main energy source. The research could help identify proteins or parts of proteins that scientists could engineer to make plants that produce more oil for use as biofuels or other oil-based products.

Protecting a promising qubit material

Tantalum is a superconducting material that shows great promise for building qubits, the basis of quantum computers. This year, a team that spans multiple Brookhaven departments discovered that adding a thin layer of magnesium improves tantalum by keeping it from oxidizing. The coating also improves tantalum’s purity and raises the temperature at which it operates as a superconductor. All three effects may increase tantalum’s ability to hold onto quantum information in qubits. This work was carried out as part of the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage, a Brookhaven-led National Quantum Information Science Research Center, and included scientists from the Lab’s Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department, Center for Functional Nanomaterials, and National Synchrotron Light Source II, as well as theorists at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It built on earlier work that also included scientists from Princeton University.

Read more on BNL website

The Cables of the SLS

The Cables of the SLS

Knowing the paths that cables take also means knowing the machine to which they belong. Emanuel Hüsler, Head of the Electrical Installations Section at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, guides us through the complex electrical network of SLS 2.0 and thereby through the entire upgrade.

Network cables, high-voltage cables, supply cables, power cables, fibre optic cables – the cables installed in recent months by the Electrical Installations Section, headed by Emanuel Hüsler, come in a wide variety of shapes and colours. Research at the Swiss Light Source SLS at PSI has been on hold since the end of September 2023: The SLS 2.0 upgrade is in full swing and will allow the refurbished facility to produce even more brilliant synchrotron light for scientific experiments, starting in 2025. As part of this upgrade, Hüsler and his team have already laid 30,000 cables, whose total length of 504 kilometres would theoretically allow someone to abseil from the International Space Station (ISS) to Earth.

A strict numbering scheme ensures that the many cables do not end up as a hopeless tangle of wires. Each cable is recorded in layouts of the system as well as in lists; each is labelled and installed chronologically under raised floors, in rails or in cabinets. “Our professional pride dictates meticulous workmanship, which is also helpful later on, when the system goes into operation,” says Hüsler.

The qualified electrician takes major projects like the SLS upgrade in his stride. He joined PSI as group leader in 2007, having previously gathered many years of experience in industry and trained as a Swiss certified electrician (advanced diploma). In 2014, he took over as Head of the Electrical Installations Section, which is part of the PSI Centre for Accelerator Science and Engineering.

Read more on the PSI website

Image: Some 30,000 cables with a total length of 504 kilometres wind their way through the complex large research facility of the SLS.

Credit: © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Markus Fischer

Superfast collisions predict supercritical fluid properties

Superfast collisions predict supercritical fluid properties

LCLS X-rays allowed researchers to connect the molecular dynamics of supercritical carbon dioxide, which is used in industrial and environmental applications, with its unique properties.

It’s a liquid! It’s a gas! No, it’s a supercritical fluid!

Neither gas nor liquid, supercritical fluids exhibit a unique mashup of the properties of both and arise when fluids are pushed to very high temperatures and pressures. Their properties make them ideal for a wide variety of chemical, pharmaceutical and environmental applications.

Supercritical carbon dioxide, for example, is often used to decaffeinate coffee – its liquid-like high density and gas-like rapid diffusion allows it to easily penetrate coffee beans and selectively extract the caffeine while preserving the beloved coffee taste. In carbon capture and sequestration, carbon dioxide emissions are stored underground in their supercritical fluid form to combat climate change. It’s also found in rocket propulsion systems, because it can efficiently store a lot of energy, and the atmospheres of some planets, such as Venus. It could also be used as a more environmentally-friendly fluid in future cooling systems.

Now, researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have uncovered new details of how supercritical fluids’ special properties arise from their molecular level dynamics. Their results are published in two studies in the journals Nature Communications and Physical Review Letters.

From static studies, researchers know that the molecular structure of supercritical fluids is made up of clusters of molecules of different sizes, but they haven’t been able to study the movement of these nanosized blobs until now.

“Probing these transient, fast-moving, nanoscale clusters is a challenge,” said Matthias Ihme, a professor of photon science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford and a member of the Stanford PULSE Institute. The fact that supercritical fluids only form under high pressure and temperature further complicates their study, he said.

However, recent advances in X-ray free electron lasers allowed Ihme and his colleagues to use SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) to directly observe the ultrafast dynamics of molecular clusters in supercritical carbon dioxide. Those advances, said SLAC staff scientist Yanwen Sun, involved a decade-long effort to generate two bright, nearly identical LCLS X-ray flashes in rapid succession – making it possible to capture the kinds of dynamics Ihme and his team were interested in.

By measuring how the LCLS’s X-rays scattered off the samples over time, the authors found that the dynamics of these systems evolve within picoseconds, or trillionths of a second. Specifically, these results, published in Nature Communications, showed that the blobs transition from ballistic motion, which is relatively straight and predictable, to the more random and unpredictable Brownian motion.

Read more on SLAC website

Image: X-rays scatter off CO2 molecules, revealing the collision of unbound molecules with dense clusters shown in blue.

Credit: Matthias Ihme/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Two-dimensional gold nanostructures

Two-dimensional gold nanostructures

An international team of researchers from Hokkaido University, Lund University, MAX IV Laboratory in Sweden, and Diamond Light Source in the UK has made significant progress in synthesising nanostructured two-dimensional gold films. This development could pave the way for advances in catalysis, electronics, and energy conversion.

The research team utilized a bottom-up approach, growing gold monolayers on iridium substrates with boron atoms embedded at the interface. This method produced nearly freestanding gold layers with hexagonal nanoscale patterns, stabilized by boron. The resulting films exhibited notable thermal stability and distinctive electronic properties, addressing the challenges of stabilizing two-dimensional metallic structures.

The facilities at MAX IV Laboratory were central to the research. The MAX IV STM Laboratory facilitated the synthesis of the gold films and their topographic characterization, while the Surface- and Materials Science end station at the FlexPES beamline enabled detailed analysis using techniques such as X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), and Angular Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy (ARPES). These complementary approaches provided valuable insights into the structure, bonding, and electronic properties of the films.

“The combination of synthesis and advanced characterization at MAX IV, particularly the ability to study atomic arrangement and surface chemistry in the same sample, was essential to this work,” said Dr. Alexei Preobrajenski of Lund University. 

Read more on MAX IV website

IMPACT: Upgrade at PSI research facility approved

IMPACT: Upgrade at PSI research facility approved

Green light for IMPACT: The upgrade at the proton accelerator facility at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI planned for the coming years will be implemented. Funding for this two-part enhancement was assured within the framework of the ERI Dispatch 2025-2028.

Financing of the Swiss Dispatch on promotion of Education, Research, and Innovation (ERI) in the years 2025 through 2028 was approved in mid-December 2024 in the Swiss Parliament. This means the budget that the ETH Domain is to receive for the coming years has been approved. This budget includes 50 million Swiss francs with which the ETH Council will co-finance the IMPACT project from central funds in the period 2025-2028. The upgrade to the user facilities associated with the proton accelerator at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI can thus be realised.

IMPACT is a joint project of PSI, the University of Zurich, and the University Hospital of Zurich. It comprises two significant upgrades to PSI’s research facilities: 

First, under the name HIMB, two beamlines for experiments with muons will be significantly improved. Muons are secondary particles generated by the protons. HIMB will increase by a factor of 100 the number of muons used for research purposes, for example in physics and materials science.

Second, a new facility called TATTOOS will be built, where important radionuclides can be produced. Radionuclides are used to produce radiopharmaceuticals, which in turn are used to diagnose and treat cancer.

“We are very pleased that funding for IMPACT has been approved as part of the ERI dispatch,” says PSI Director Christian Rüegg. “We are proud and grateful that we can continue to invest in the future. Education and research secure the prosperity and independence of Switzerland,” continues Rüegg. “Especially in financially difficult times, we therefore need strong research and innovation and strategic, forward-looking investments. IMPACT is an important step for the future of materials research, medicine and particle physics.”

Read more on the PSI website

Image: PSI Director Christian Rüegg at the cover of the cyclotron, which represents the third acceleration stage for the proton beam at PSI, which is unique worldwide.

Credit: © Scanderbeg Sauer Photography

Possible green solution for manganese-contaminated soils

Possible green solution for manganese-contaminated soils

Manganese (Mn) is an essential micronutrient for plants, but at high concentrations, it can become toxic. However, Eucalyptus tereticornis appears to be remarkably tolerant to Mn, even at levels well above those that would cause harm to other plant species. The mechanism(s) underlying this ability were not understood based on scientific literature. From a study that monitored the Mn absorption in these plants, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, researchers from the Department of Plant Biology at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) and from The Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), from the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM), demonstrated how E. tereticornis can tolerate and detoxify high levels of Mn in its environment.  

The article, entitled “Tissue-level distribution and speciation of foliar manganese in Eucalyptus tereticornis by µ-SXRF and µ-XANES shed light on its detoxification mechanisms” led by Vinicius H. De Oliveira at Unicamp, presents the locations in the plant organism where Mn is accumulated, in what forms this element is assimilated, and even elucidates some of the mechanisms responsible for this ability to tolerate high concentrations of the metal used by E. tereticornis. This characteristic could be explored for environmental remediation purposes, particularly in contaminated soils.  

According to LNLS Soil Science Advisor, Dr. Dean Hesterberg, one of the article’s authors, it is not just the total Mn concentration that is important for understanding contaminated soils. “In acidic soils and especially under reducing redox conditions, manganese minerals are more soluble, which generally increases Mn availability for plant uptake. This can impact plants, which mainly absorb dissolved Mn. And, in Brazil, there are many acidic soils”, says Hesterberg.  

Synchrotron radiation imaging techniques

To gain evidence of how eucalyptus tolerates Mn-rich soils, researchers mapped the Mn distribution within Eucalyptus tereticornis leaves over time. This was possible through advanced techniques available at the Carnaúba beamline of the electron accelerator and synchrotron light generator, Sirius. The techniques used in the work included synchrotron micro scanning X-ray fluorescence imaging (µ-SXRF) and micro X-ray Absorption Near-Edge Structure (µ-XANES) spectroscopy.

Both use synchrotron radiation, a type of light released when electrons are accelerated to speeds very close to that of light. This usually happens by making them travel in a circular path, through strong magnetic fields, as is the case with the Sirius machine. Synchrotron light is incredibly bright and tunable over a wide range of wavelengths. In this way, the Carnaúba beamline uses light at X-ray wavelengths produced by the Sirius accelerator.

µ-SXRF

The synchrotron micro scanning X-ray fluorescence imaging (µ-SXRF) technique is used to investigate the elemental distribution and composition of materials on a microscopic scale. Fluorescence occurs because when materials are exposed to X-rays, atoms in the sample are excited and emit secondary (or fluorescent) X-rays when de-excited. The energy of these emissions serves as a fingerprint of each chemical element. This allows scientists to identify and quantify the composition of the studied material.  

LNLS/CNPEM researcher Dr. Carlos Alberto Pérez, one of the study’s authors, explains a little about how the technique works. “The µ-SXRF works based on X-ray optical equipment. The equipment has a monochromator, a crystal that defines a specific energy for the sample excitation. Another part of the equipment is the nanofocusing of this monochromatic light. This way, an X-ray beam that is about 100 times smaller than a human hair is created”.  

Through this beam of light, researchers are able to scan the sample, point by point, which generates an image with thousands of pixels. X-ray fluorescence is emitted as the beam hits each of these points. At the end, the pixels are computed using a program to generate an image, called elemental map. 

Elemental maps can be constructed for several specific chemical elements. In the case of the research published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, the group of scientists assembled the elemental map of Mn in eucalyptus tissues. Thus, they were able to compare the presence of Mn in the plant’s leaf tissues, when it grew with an abundance of Mn and when it grew with normal amounts of the metal.  

μ-XANES

Micro-X-Ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (μ-XANES) spectroscopy, in turn, is used to probe the chemical state and electronic structure of specific elements in a sample. It is a sub-technique of X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (analysis of how a sample absorbs X-rays), focusing on the energy band near the absorption edge of the element being studied. That is why the technique’s name brings the term ‘near the edge’.  

Hesterberg says that “unlike µ-SXRF, which is a fixed energy and scanning technique, µ-XANES is a variable energy technique. The absorption edge region is where there is a large increase in X-ray absorption by the sample”.  

Analysis of the edge region made it possible to discover the manganese oxidation state, that is, whether the element was in the form Mn²⁺, Mn³⁺ or Mn⁴⁺. Therefore, the technique allowed the researchers to understand if the manganese was in an oxidized form, or in a mineral state, and what coordinating atoms are likely around it. This means understanding what strategies eucalyptus uses to detoxify itself from the metal.  

Read more on CNPEM website

Image: Detectors around a sample being measured at the Sirius’ Carnaúba beamline.

Advancing hydrogen as a replacement for carbon fuels

Advancing hydrogen as a replacement for carbon fuels

While the notion of using hydrogen for energy has been around since Sir William Grove first invented the fuel cell in 1838, the idea started to get more traction after the first use of fuel cells in space for NASA’s 1965 Gemini V mission.

More recently, researchers like Tess Seip, a PhD candidate in the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Toronto (UToronto), have been investigating hydrogen as a green energy source to mitigate carbon emissions.

Seip and a team led by Dr. Aimy Bazylak are working to improve the efficiency of a device that uses electricity—preferably from solar and wind sources—to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, which can then be stored and used for energy. The device is called a polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolyzer, or PEMWE for short.

The UToronto team was focused on a specific layer inside the PEMWE, called the porous transport layer (PTL), which controls the flow of water inside. Water passes through the PTL before it reaches a catalyst layer, which splits the water molecule.

However, the reaction—known as electrolysis—can cause excess gas to accumulate, which prevents water from reaching the catalyst. Seip and her colleagues were testing a new design they developed, which has extra channels in it, to improve water flow. Better water flow means less energy is needed to drive the process.

With the help of the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, the team found that their simple modification did in fact improve the efficiency of a PEMWE.

Seip and her colleagues were particularly interested to see if there were changes in membrane thickness and PTL hydration. “If it’s not hydrated, it slows the reaction rate and reduces the efficiency,” says Seip.

The ultra bright light produced by the CLS synchrotron was critical for their work: “The BMIT beamline at the CLS has a resolution of around 6.5 microns per pixel, so this lets us characterize these microscopic changes in the membrane,” says Seip. For reference, the typical human hair is 65 microns thick. “The most important factor is that we are able to do this while the cell is operating.”

Read more on CLS website

Image: The research team at the BMIT-ID beamline at the Canadian Light Source. L-R: Tess Seip, Lijun Zhu, Chaeyoung Tina Ham, Dr. Alexandre Tugirumubano, and Prof. Aimy Bazylak.

Britta Redlich takes over as Photon Science Director at DESY

Britta Redlich takes over as Photon Science Director at DESY

Former director of the Dutch research facility HFML-FELIX comes to Hamburg

Britta Redlich will take over the lead of the Photon Science research division at DESY on 1 January 2025. The Professor of experimental physics was previously Director of the FELIX free-electron laser and the HFML high-field magnetic laboratory at Radboud University in Nijmegen (Netherlands).

Helmut Dosch, Chairman of the DESY Board of Directors, is looking forward to working together with her: “Britta Redlich´s experience and passion for research are an enrichment for DESY. With her appointment, DESY has gained a personality who shares and will drive forward our vision of cutting-edge research and technological innovation. I am convinced that she will provide decisive momentum for the future of Photon Science at DESY, in Europe and worldwide.”

Britta Redlich received her doctorate in chemistry from the University of Hanover in 1998 and initially worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Münster. In 2000, she went to the FOM Institute Rijnhuizen in the Netherlands with an Emmy Noether Programme from the German Research Foundation. She conducted research with the FELIX (Free-Electron Lasers for Infrared eXperiment) free-electron laser and was in charge of its operation from 2003. After the laser was transferred to Radboud University Nijmegen in 2013, she took on the role of Chairwoman in 2015, became Director of FELIX in 2018 and also Director of HFML (High Field Magnet Laboratory) in 2023.

Britta Redlich is a Senator of the Helmholtz Association for the Research Field Matter and a member of international consortia such as LEAPS, LaserLab Europe and FELs of Europe. Collaboration in these networks has expanded her expertise in the development and utilisation of state-of-the-art light sources.

Read more on DESY website

Image: Chemist and Professor of experimental physics Britta Redlich will head the Photon Science research division at DESY from January 2025.

Credit: DESY, Jörg Müller

10 years of research on magnetism at MISTRAL: visualization of hyperbolic Bloch points

10 years of research on magnetism at MISTRAL: visualization of hyperbolic Bloch points

The vector tomography method developed at MISTRAL beamline of the ALBA Synchrotron enables to visualize with nanometric resolution the orientation of the magnetization in magnetic singularities located in magnetic films or multilayers. After 10 years of research, it is reported the first observation of hyperbolic Bloch points, attractive entities for magnetic information transport.

About 70% of all the digitally stored data in the world are located in magnetic bits on disks that have to rotate to reach the location of movable reading sensors. This storage technology, thirty years old, consumes energy and dissipates heat at undesired levels. The search for more efficient methods has been, and still is, an active field of investigation.

Instead of movable parts as disks that require electrical motors, one aims to move the magnetic domains in magnetic ultra-thin films by applying electrical currents or other excitations reducing the operating powers by orders of magnitude. Within this general approach, known as spintronics, the magnetic domains and the walls that separate domains with opposite magnetization are very important actors.

The magnetic structure of the domain walls historically classified in Bloch and Neel types, includes singularities namely skyrmions, merons and Bloch points among others, that have only been observed in recent years. The structure of the magnetization in these singularities may confer them enough energetic stability to be considered as possible dynamic entities for spintronic-based magnetic memories.

As their sizes are nanometric and their magnetic conformation is in general complicated, state of the art microscopy methods are required to visualize them. At the MISTRAL beamline of the ALBA Synchrotron  this topic has been investigated since already ten years and progressively the accuracy of the description of magnetic entities has been improved. The experimental method, known as vector magnetic tomography, allows to visualize with nanometric resolution the orientation of the magnetization in magnetic singularities located in magnetic films or multilayers. It is based on the angular dependence of the dichroic magnetic absorption (different X ray absorption for right and left handed circularly polarized photons).

Read more on ALBA website

Ryszard Sobierajski new Council vice-chair

Ryszard Sobierajski new Council vice-chair

At the recent meeting of the European XFEL Council, Dr hab. Ryszard Henryk Sobierajski was elected as new vice-chair of the European XFEL’s highest governing body. He will follow by the end of the year Prof. Dr James (Jim) Henderson Naismith.

“We thank Jim for many years of inspiring contributions as European XFEL’s vice-chair,” says Thomas Feurer, Managing Director and Chair of the Management Board of European XFEL. “And we heartily welcome our well-known colleague Ryszard.”

“Ryszard is a profound expert of research with synchrotron light and free electron-lasers, and an experienced science manager,” adds Federico Boscherini, Chair of the European XFEL Council.

Sobierajski takes up his office with effect from 1 January 2025 and for a period of two years. He is Associate Professor at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa, Poland and since January 2020 one of the Polish delegates to the European XFEL council. Additionally, he is an expert on the Proposal Review Panel for the HED instrument at European XFEL–most of the time as its chair.

Read more on XFEL website

Image: The coming vice-chair of the European XFEL Council, Ryszard Sobierajski

Mapping the Nanoscale Architecture of Functional Materials

Mapping the Nanoscale Architecture of Functional Materials

At the Swiss Light Source SLS, researchers have developed a pioneering X-ray technique to probe the 3D orientation of a material’s building blocks at the nanoscale. Applied to a polycrystalline catalyst, the technique allows the visualisation of crystal grains, grain boundaries and defects – key factors dictating catalyst performance. Beyond catalysis, the innovation unlocks previously inaccessible details about the structure of diverse functional materials, including those used in information technology, energy storage and biomedical applications. The findings are reported in Nature. 

Zoom in to the micro or nanostructure of functional materials, both natural and manmade, and you’ll find they consist of thousands upon thousands of coherent domains or grains – distinct regions where molecules and atoms are arranged in a repeating pattern. 

Such local ordering is inextricably linked to the material properties. The size, orientation, and distribution of grains can make the difference between a sturdy brick or a crumbling stone; it determines the ductility of metal, the efficiency of electron transfer in a semiconductor, or the thermal conductivity of ceramics. It is also an important feature of biological materials: collagen fibres, for example, are formed from a network of fibrils and their organisation determines the biomechanical performance of connective tissue. 

These domains are often tiny: tens of nanometres in size. And it is their arrangement in three-dimensions over extended volumes that is property-determining. Yet until now, techniques to probe the organisation of materials at the nanoscale have largely been confined to two-dimensions or are destructive in nature. 

Now, using X-rays generated by the Swiss Light Source SLS, a collaborative team of researchers from Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, ETH Zurich, the University of Oxford and the Max Plank Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids have succeeded in creating an imaging technique to access this information in three-dimensions.

Read more on PSI website

Image: Many functional materials are composed of coherent domains or grains, where molecules and atoms are arranged in a repeating pattern that determines performance. X-ray Linear Dichroic Orientation Tomography (XL-DOT) allows 3D mapping of material microstructure at the nanoscale. Here, the technique is applied to a pillar of vanadium pentoxide catalyst, used in the production of sulfuric acid. The colours in the tomogram represent the different orientation of grains.

Credit: Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Andreas Apseros

Discovery paves way for next-generation medications

Discovery paves way for next-generation medications

As the problem of antibiotic resistance continues to grow, we need new drugs that the bad bacteria in our bodies don’t already know how to avoid. New research by scientists at McGill University represents a major step forward in our ability to develop medicines whose effectiveness will endure in the battle against infections.

The study, published in the prestigious journal Nature, has revealed how molecular machinery inside nature’s microbes builds antibiotics. Researchers have been working on this problem for decades, and this new insight represents a major step forward in our ability to create new drugs and medicines.

Scientists Angelos Pistofidis and Martin Schmeing used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to take groundbreaking pictures of the molecular machinery’s crystal structure.

The molecular machines that Pistofidis and Schmeing studied are called nonribosomal peptide synthetases, or NRPSs. They build some of the most important compounds in current health care and environmental treatments, including antibiotics, anti-cancer agents, and immunosuppressants.

“They have an immense number of applications,” says Pistofidis. “For example, the peptide cyclosporin has been used many, many times as an immunosuppressant for organ transplant operations.”

The breakthrough in their project was capturing images of the NRPS during a key step in the process of building antibiotics. Previously, they had identified the steps involved in NRPS’s production process, but the details were hazy. The synchrotron played a key role in their work.

“The CLS is a world-class establishment. You can very rapidly and very efficiently collect data. It made the whole experience of collecting data on a very complex crystal, like the one that we presented in the paper, quite efficient,” says Schmeing.

Getting the NRPS machine to pause at this step took Pistofidis four years of work, while Schmeing has been working on uncovering the details of this whole process for 15 years.

Read more on CLS website

New detoxification pathway for mercury in penguins

New detoxification pathway for mercury in penguins

An international team of scientists led by the ESRF has found that emperor penguins detoxify mercury with both sulphur and selenium, a new pathway for a marine predator. This new detoxification pathway for mercury has been unveiled in a study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

Mercury is considered by WHO as one of the top ten chemicals of major public health concern. Mercury bioaccumulates in organisms along time and biomagnifies in aquatic and terrestrial food webs as the neurotoxic form of methylmercury. Understanding the internal detoxification processes of methylmercury in animals is essential for protecting wildlife and designing treatments against mercury poisoning.

Alain Manceau, ESRF scientist and researcher emeritus at the CNRS, together with his collaborators from the University of La Rochelle and the CNRS (LIENSs and CEBC), the United States Geological Survey, and the University of California Davis, has been studying how animals detoxify mercury for years.

Back in 2021, they unveiled that apex predators, such as seabirds like giant petrels, and marine mammals like pilot whales, detoxify methylmercury through a sequence of reactions involving reduced selenium in the form of a prominent selenoprotein. Since mercury is ultimately detoxified as nontoxic mercury selenide, it has diminished toxicological consequences as long as there is sufficient selenium, because mercury selenide is chemically inert.

“We knew the mechanism that animals that are exposed to large quantities of mercury use; now we wanted to find out what happens with animals that are lower in the food chain, such as penguins”, Manceau explains. Emperor penguins feed mostly on Antarctic silver fish and squid, which contain methylmercury, albeit not in large quantities. Because of this, penguins are less contaminated with mercury than toothed whales, giant petrels, and other predators higher in the food web.

The scientists, who used X-ray absorption spectroscopy, identified, for the first time, a second demethylation pathway of toxic methylmercury. In Emperor penguins, the toxic mercury is partially detoxified using the same chemical pathway as giant petrels, but theses penguins have also developed a second mechanism whereby their body forms a Hg-dithiolate complex. This complex binds to cysteine amino acids in enzymes, altering their function. This demethylation pathway had never been observed before in animals, only in bacteria.  

Read more on ESRF website

Image: A baby penguin.

Credit: Yves Cherel. 

Technology Development for Producing Nearly Commercializable CO2-Free Green Hydrogen

Technology Development for Producing Nearly Commercializable CO2-Free Green Hydrogen

This study proposes a photo-electrode material technology that may significantly change the development of photo-electrochemical hydrogen production technology. With this study, it is expected that hydrogen production using photo-electrodes at a commercial level will be possible soon.

Hydrogen is an eco-friendly energy source that reduces greenhouse gases and fine dust. It is essential for building a clean and safe society. Currently, hydrogen production relies on utilizing the by-product hydrogen from petrochemical processes and extracting from natural gas. However, these production methods generate CO2, creating an ironic situation of contributing to global warming while aiming for a clean Earth.

The commercialization of solar-based production technology is urgently needed to address this issue. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) set specific goals for expanding clean hydrogen production in the “US National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap” released in June 2023. Also, it established targets for commercializing solar-based hydrogen production technology at the level of a solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiency of over 10 %, stability for over 1000 hours, and a PEC (photo-electrochemical) H2 system cost of $ 2-4 per kilogram. Various research and investments are underway to achieve these goals.

Hydrogen (H2) production requires photo-electrodes with high PEC activity and durability. However, surface defects, photo-corrosion instability, and especially instability at high potentials degrade PEC performance and stability. In this study, we introduced an HfO2 protective layer and a NiPt single-atom catalyst to improve the surface of a BiVO4 photoelectrode, classified as a low-cost material, and controlled strong corrosivity, achieving a high stability of over 800 hours. This was evaluated under one-sun solar light (100 mW/cm²). This study has significant implications as it is the first demonstration of long-term performance in the world. Furthermore, we achieved a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 6.0 % of the self-driven photo-electrochemical water splitting device based on the BiVO4 photoelectrode, which is significant as it is approximately 90 % of the theoretical efficiency of the BiVO4 material.

Read more on PAL website

Cancer Research Horizons and Diamond Light Source establish drug discovery partnership

Cancer Research Horizons and Diamond Light Source establish drug discovery partnership

Cancer Research Horizons, the innovation arm of Cancer Research UK, is partnering with Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron, to build a world-leading fragment-based drug discovery programme

Diamond Light Source accelerates electrons to near light speed, producing bright light that is directed into research instruments known as beamlines. Cancer Research Horizons and its drug discovery site at Newcastle University have already been using Diamond’s beamlines and XChem facility for fragment-based screening, a powerful approach to identify chemical entities that can be developed rapidly into potent candidates.

The new partnership will build on this existing relationship to improve the throughput, running and analysis of these experiments. By leveraging their combined expertise and resources, the partnership aims to accelerate the drug discovery process and help bring new cancer treatments to patients faster.

Under the agreement, Cancer Research Horizons will fund two on-site postdoctoral research assistants dedicated to optimising the delivery of its in-house and industry-partnered projects. In return, Diamond will provide early access to any proprietary developments to its platform.

The partnership will establish a governance framework to enable Cancer Research Horizons to provide feedback on the industrialisation of Diamond’s Fragment Screening platform. This initiative aims to enhance its appeal to Cancer Research Horizons’ pharmaceutical and biotech partners, driving broader industry engagement.

Read more on Diamond website