aptamer sensors patched up

My astrobiology co-author Kevin Plaxco has been pioneering the development of biosensors based on aptamers (the artificially generated DNA equivalent of antibodies) for many years now and every once in a while I write about the progress in this fascinating field. Now the work has reached its first clinical trial, so I wrote a news story for Chemistry World to help spread the word.

The news story is out now:

World first for clinical trial of skin patch to monitor therapeutic drugs in real time

Chemistry World 5.2.2026

Source: © Marsilea A Booth et al/Springer Nature America 2026

Previous episodes in this serie are listed here.

carbon ring hooked up

I don't write about real chemistry very often these days, but it's always great to hear about the creative (supra)molecular architectures and new allotropes of carbon developed in Harry Anderson's lab here in Oxford. The latest news from his lab, published in Science magazine this week, is the first molecular carbon ring stable enough to be investigated in solution by normal spectroscopy methods. Previous carbon rings were produced by atom manipulation on solid surfaces, a method requiring extremely low temperatures (see here and here).

I wrote a news story for Chemistry World about this new work, which is out now:

Ring of pure carbon stabilised by its catenane connections

Chemistry World 15.8.2025

I believe it is freely accessible as long as you haven't used up your monthly quota of free articles from CW.

The three macrocycles helped to stabilise the C48 molecule, allowing the first isolation in solution of this class of molecule. Image source: © Yueze Gao et al 2025

PS It looks like I forgot to blog some of the CW news stories of recent years, I'll list the missing ones here so I have them somewhere on this blog in case I ever get round to updating my publications list.

Proteins behind diatoms’ intricate nanoscale-patterned shells revealed
Chemistry World 5.1.2023

Light-harvesting wheel reinvented by chemists copying bacterium
Chemistry World 7.7. 2020

Hydrogens seen crystal clear in small molecules
Chemistry World 31.5. 2016

For a complete list of all my pieces in Chemistry World, see my profile page.

more carbon rings

I reported the discovery of a new allotrope of carbon, the C18 cyclocarbon, back in 2019. It took a while, but the groups involved in that paper have now presented another new ring molecule made only of carbon, C16. This time the extra challenge is in the fact that it is anti-aromatic (hosting 4n rather than 4n+2 atoms in the ring). A group in China has also produced several such rings in different sizes with a similar method. Their papers aren't officially published yet but available as preprints.

My news story in Chemistry World is out now (open access if you haven't used up your monthly quota of free stories):

Carbon's anti-aromatic allotrope is ringing the changes

The paper is out in Nature online (but not in this week's issue) and is on open access. UPDATE The paper is now in the issue of 29.11.2023, page 977, together with one of the papers from the Wei Xu's group, on page 972

And here is the recipe:

Source: © Yueze Gao et al 2023

The precursor 4 is deposited on a NaCl surface and the carbon monoxide and halogen masking groups are then eliminated to give the cyclocarbon C16

nanoworld's submarines

Back in the 1990s, when I did research on the molecular machines in the cell and got excited about artificial nanomachines inspired by these, I wrote a whole book about this nature vs technology on the nanoscale thing: Travels to the Nanoworld.

In recent years, I haven't covered this field all that much, as I've move more into ecology/environment direction, but C&I kindly asked me to do a feature on miniature machines pegged to some exciting things that came out of Cornell's labs, so I did. It is out now:

Nano submarines

Chemistry & Industry Volume 86, Issue 12, December 2022, Pages 26-29

access via:

Wiley Online Library (paywalled)

SCI (open access)

Any access problems give me a shout and I can send a PDF file.

A scanning electron microscope image shows a cell-size robotic swimmer that can be powered and steered by ultrasound waves.
Wu Lab, Cornell University/Tao Luo, Xiamen University

insulin revisited

Back in the days of Travels to the nanoworld, I tended to use insulin as an example of protein synthesis, function, and cultural significance quite a bit. My perception of the discovery story (and the Nobel prize widely believed to have made the wrong call) was shaped by the novel by Charles Wassermann. Now, as the centenaries of the events are upon us, there has been a more scientific and thorough write-up of those events, and they turned out to be so much messier than the simple romantic story that Wassermann (and many others) used to tell. This is in the book:

Insulin The Crooked Timber : A History from Thick Brown Muck to Wall Street Gold

Kersten T. Hall

OUP (20 Jan 2022)

And my long essay review is out in C&I now:

The messy story of insulin

Chemistry & Industry Volume 86, Issue 10, October 2022, Page 38

access via:

Wiley Online Library (paywalled PDF of the whole comment section)

SCI (premium content, ie members only)

Blackwells

See also my twitter thread listing books I read in 2022.

molecules and microbes

In the round-up of German pieces April to August 2022 we have microbes in cold geysers and on plants, as well as molecules from space, from early Earth, in suncream and on surfaces:

Diels-Alder Reaktion: Tanz der Elektronen
Chemie in unserer Zeit Volume 56, Issue 2, April 2022, Page 85
Restricted access via Wiley Online Library
related content in English: Diels-Alder reaction directly observed under the microscope

Ausgeforscht: Arachäen im kalten Sprudel
Nachrichten aus der Chemie Volume 70, Issue 4, April 2022, Page 98
restricted access via Wiley Online Library

This tongue-in-cheek piece is about archaea found in the cold water geyser at Andernach:

Image source: Wikipedia / Bungert55

I must have passed the site a hundred times going up and down the river Rhine on trains, but have never seen the geyser in action.

Das Mikrobiom der Pflanzen
Nachrichten aus der Chemie Volume 70, Issue 5, May 2022, Pages 79-80
restricted access via Wiley Online Library
related content in English: How plants grow their microbiome

Astrochemie: Moleküle aus dem Weltraum
Chemie in unserer Zeit Volume 56, Issue 3, June 2022, Page 153
Restricted access via Wiley Online Library
related content in English: Chemical ecosystem of Murchison meteorite molecules revealed in snapshots

(Blau)3 blüht der Ozean
Nachrichten aus der Chemie Volume 70, Issue 6, June 2022, Page 92
restricted access via Wiley Online Library

Paläobiologie: Lebensspuren oder chemischer Garten?
Nachrichten aus der Chemie Volume 70, Issue , 2022, Page 106
restricted access via Wiley Online Library

visualising extraterrestrial molecules

I cover atomic force microscopy every once in a while, which results from my residual connections in chemistry and interest in the nanoworld, and because of the astrobiology book I am of course interested in all extraterrestrial molecules.

So the great news is that now these two threads of my work have met and I have been able to report the first AFM work on actual extraterrestrial molecules, which is really exciting, even though it hasn't taught us anything fundamentally new - except that you can visualise extraterrestrial molecules. So anybody who has meteorite materials, send a sample to my namesake Leo Gross, and he will get you lovely pictures of the organic molecules contained in them.

Read all about it on the Chemistry World website (open access if you restrain yourself and don't read more than two stories per month):

Chemical ecosystem of Murchison meteorite molecules revealed in snapshots

all eyes on atoms

I've rounded up some exciting science on how to image and manipulate atoms in my latest feature in Chemistry & Industry, including the atom manipulation work from Harry Anderson's group here in Oxford together with Leo Gross in Zurich, as well as a collaborative effort from the universities of Nottingham and Ulm (Germany) using carbon nanotubes as test-tubes to analyse bond formation between metal atoms.

The feature is out now:

All eyes on atoms

Chemistry & Industry 84, No. 5, pp 22-25.

access via:

Wiley Online Library (paywalled)

SCI (members)


Oh, and my feature made the cover which looks amazing:




Couldn't find a decent sized jpg of the cover, so had to take my own photo of the actual paper magazine.

the ribosome assembled

Today's issue of Current Biology has a special theme, namely the cell in evolution. My contribution to the theme section is a feature on the evolution and assembly of the ribosome as a key example of how complexity arises (both on evolutionary timescales and in terms of structure assembly in the cell). Read all about it:



How to build complexity

Current Biology Volume 30, Issue 10, 18 May 2020, Pages R454-R456

FREE access to full text and PDF download




Cover of the special issue.

aromatics go extra large

A news story I had published in Chemistry World in January and forgot to brag about:

Harry Anderson's group stitched together porphyrin rings in very clever ways to create aromatic molecules with up to 162 pi electrons, which still obey Hückel's rule. Considering that Erich Hückel developed his concept of aromaticity based on benzene with 6 pi electrons, I find this quite mindboggling. And it also looks stunning.

Largest molecular wheel ever made pushes limits of aromaticity rules
Chemistry World, 22.1.2020
Open Access (Chemistry World allow you to read a few articles for free each month, so as long as you haven't used up your quota this one should be free)



Artist's impression.

chemistry stories

These days, I don't write as much about chemistry as I used to as the features for Current Biology keep me reasonably busy, but here's a couple of news stories I did for Chemistry World. The one that came out today involves Harry Anderson's lab at Oxford - I consulted him about something else and asked what he was up to these days, so I found out about this:

Most complex reaction ever triggered by atomic manipulation makes molecular wire
Chemistry World August 2018, vol 15, issue 8, page 32

And the other was something that Chemistry World commissioned while this one was sitting around waiting for the original paper to come out. This is about new ways of predicting how several elements may be combined to form new materials:


AI teaches itself to identify materials – and predict new ones too
Chemistry World August 2018, vol 15, issue 8, page 38






Image source

bacterial wires

Open Archive Day

I heard last week that the ability of bacteria to form pili that act as electrical wires is not limited to the species of geobacter in which it was first discovered (press release here).

This reminded me of a different kind of bacterial electricity which I described in a feature back in 2012, which is now freely accessible:

Surprises from the sea floor





Microbiologist Derek Lovley and colleaugues at UMass Amherst report finding electrically conducting pili or 'e-pili' in more bacteria species than just the original Geobacter discovery he made 30 years ago.
Credit: UMass Amherst

the sound of chemistry

A couple of book reviews I forgot to mention:


Sonochemistry by Gregory Chatel
Chemistry & Industry issue 7, page 39.
restricted access via Wiley Online Library
snippet:

Chatel offers a brief introduction into what sonochemistry is for the ‘silent’ majority of chemists, which he presents with commendable clarity. Any chemist wondering whether sonochemistry might be worth trying, should find what they’re looking for in the first half of the book.

(spoiler alert, the second half of the book isn't quite as gripping as the first.)




Nanocomposite materials,
Chemistry & Industry issue 6, page 38.
restricted access via Wiley Online Library
I've reviewed way too many "nano" monographs in the last 20 years, so I am losing patience with them. And this one didn't quite manage to convince me that I want to read more ...

cellular computation

as I have been saying since I wrote a book chapter on Molecular Computation (1998), the fundamental processes in a living cell are essentially computation. This could potentially be used in two ways - building computers based on molecules and cells, or manipulating important biological processes (eg in medical or agricultural context) using computational tools.

Back in the 1990s, the molecular computer was a promising avenue, but it never quite took off. Now the other way round, programming biology, seems the more exciting prospect. This has given a major boost by the recent invention of a compiler that can translate computer code into DNA regulatory networks, which in most cases even work in the cell.

As we are increasingly becoming aware that complex regulatory networks (rather than single genes and enzymes) are the things that we need to understand and control if we want to change biological processes, this development could very well revolutionise several areas where we interfere with living beings, from agriculture to medicine.

Read all about it in my latest feature in Chemistry & Industry:

Cellular computer
Chemistry & Industry Volume 81, Issue 4, pages 26–29
DOI: 10.1002/cind.814_7.x
Full text (Wiley Online Library)

microfluidics for all

There's no feature from me in today's issue of Current Biology - slight hiccup but normal service resumes in two weeks time.

Instead, here is one in the latest issue of Chemistry & Industry, on some amazing things that are being done with microfluidics these days, from counting molecules to building soft robots:

Microfluidics for all

Chemistry & Industry 2017, vol 81, no 3, pp 22-25
SCI members and subscribers access via SCI
Wiley Online Library (paywalled)

(NB issue 3 is dated 18.4., as there are only 10 issues spread through the year)




sneak preview of the first page (from Wiley Online Library)

crispr sensing

The revolutionary gene-editing technique known as Crispr-Cas has been embroiled in a patent dispute between two leading US research institutions. In one corner, the University of California at Berkeley, where Jennifer Doudna discovered it in collaboration with Emanuelle Charpentier, and in the other, MIT’s Broad Institute, where Feng Zhang’s group first demonstrated its use in living cells.

Now the two institutions are competing against each other again, as both recently demonstrated the usefulness of a different Crispr system for the detection of pathogens. Doudna’s and Zhang’s groups had shown in 2016 that a Crispr-type enzyme called C2c2, now renamed Cas13, targets single stranded RNA, unlike the ones used in gene editing, such as Cas9, which edit double-stranded DNA. Moreover, it doesn’t stop cutting once it has destroyed its target. It goes on to cleave thousands of other RNA molecules that happen to be nearby. This collateral damage provides a useful amplification step enabling the sensitive detection of the original target RNA, whose recognition can be programmed just as in the gene-editing method.

Aiming to turn this into a clinically usable sensor, Zhang teamed up with Jim Collins, also at MIT, who was involved in the race to develop practical methods for rapid detection of the Zika virus.

Read all about it in my latest news story in Chemistry World which is out now (free access if you haven't read any other CW stories this week, they have a free quota):

Crispr enables rapid disease detection

highly charged

I have half a cover story in the new issue of Chemistry & Industry - as the cover is about future means to power transport, including biofuel and batteries. My feature is the one about batteries:

Highly charged
Chemistry & Industry vol 81, issue 2, pp 22-25

Open access to full text (HTML) via SCI website

Restricted access to PDF files via Wiley Online Library



Chemistry & Industry issue 2 / 2017

aptamer update

I don't do all that many news stories these days, but I did pick up this one from the lab of my old friend and astrobiology co-author Kevin Plaxco, as it is a further step on a path I have followed since the beginnings more than a decade ago.

So the latest news is that electronic aptamer sensors can now work inside a living, moving mammal, as you can read in Chemistry World today:

Personalised medicine boost as cancer drug monitored in real-time

Previous steps on the way:

Chemists crack cocaine detection Chemistry World 2006

MEDIC to kick-start personalised medicine revolution Chemistry World 2013

Biosensors in real time Feature in Chemistry & Industry 2014, No. 4, pp42-45.

Aptamerensoren für kontinuierliche Bluttests Chemie in unserer Zeit 2014,48, 88

lighting the future

Edison-style incandescent lamps have disappeared from the shops. The energy-saving compact lamps that replaced them are also likely to go, and are already being replaced by even more energy-efficient LED lamps. But is this the best solution, the ultimate light bulb? Will they last as long as Edison's bright idea? In my latest feature for Chemistry & Industry magazine I looked into new developments in lighting technology:

What a bright idea

Chemistry & Industry Volume 80, Issue 9, pp 22-25, DOI: 10.1002/cind.809_8.x

Free access to full text (HTML) via SCI.

Restricted access to full text and PDF download via Wiley Online Library.

an installation of lights and chemical glassware in the windows of the Wellcome Collection, London (own photo).

In the same issue on page 38-39, there is my review of the book "Bananaworld" by Jeffrey Bub (premium content).

blue moon

The harvest of the German magazines in November and December includes cephalopods (on the cover of Nachrichten aus der Chemie, below), neon on the moon, and molecular electronics:

Blickpunkt Biowissenschaften: Die wundersamen Fähigkeiten der Tintenfische
Nachrichten aus der Chemie 2015, 63, 1186-1188.
related content in English

Ausgeforscht: Neon auf dem Mond
Nachrichten aus der Chemie 2015, 63, 1259.

Materialforschung: Biomolekül als Elektronikbaustein
Spektrum der Wissenschaft No. 11, 17-19

cover of Nachrichten aus der Chemie, Dec. 2015.