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Vanadium(V) oxytrichloride was reacted with 2,4-pentanedione, diethyl malonate, and diethyl succinate under inert conditions, forming compounds: dichloro(oxo)(2,4-pentanedione) vanadium(V) [1], dichloro(oxo)(diethyl malonate) vanadium(IV) [2] and dichloro(oxo)(diethyl succinate) vanadium(IV) [3]. Compounds 1–3 are coordinated to the vanadium centre through the two carbonyl oxygen atoms of the bidentate ligand. It was determined by X-ray crystallography that the structures of the resulting complexes were significantly different, resulting in a monomeric complex (1), a tetrameric ring (2) and a 1D coordination polymer (3). Following the synthesis and isolation of 1–3, they were tested as precursors for vanadium nitride and vanadium carbide by annealing under nitrogen and argon respectively at 1200 °C for 24 h. The resulting materials were characterised by: XRD, EDS, XPS and TEM. Keywords: Vanadium oxychloride, Precursors, Ester adducts, Vanadium carbide, Vanadium nitride, Hard materials

Mutant cancer subpopulations have the potential to derail durable patient responses to molecularly targeted cancer therapeutics, yet the prevalence and size of such subpopulations are largely unexplored. We employed the sensitive and quantitative Allele-specific Competitive Blocker PCR approach to characterize mutant cancer subpopulations in ductal carcinomas (DCs), examining five specific hotspot point mutations (PIK3CA H1047R, KRAS G12D, KRAS G12V, HRAS G12D, and BRAF V600E). As an approach to aid interpretation of the DC results, the mutations were also quantified in normal breast tissue. Overall, the mutations were prevalent in normal breast and DCs, with 9/9 DCs having measureable levels of at least three of the five mutations. HRAS G12D was significantly increased in DCs as compared to normal breast. The most frequent point mutation reported in DC by DNA sequencing, PIK3CA H1047R, was detected in all normal breast tissue and DC samples and was present at remarkably high levels (mutant fractions of 1.1 × 10(-3) to 4.6 × 10(-2)) in 4/10 normal breast samples. In normal breast tissue samples, PIK3CA mutation levels were positively correlated with age. However, the PIK3CA H1047R mutant fraction distributions for normal breast tissues and DCs were similar. The results suggest PIK3CA H1047R mutant cells have a selective advantage in breast, contribute to breast cancer susceptibility, and drive tumor progression during breast carcinogenesis, even when present as only a subpopulation of tumor cells.

We present the synthesis of nylon-12 scaffolds by 3D printing and demonstrate their versatility as matrices for cell growth, differentiation, and biomineral formation. We demonstrate that the porous nature of the printed parts makes them ideal for the direct incorporation of preformed nanomaterials or material precursors, leading to nanocomposites with very different properties and environments for cell growth. Additives such as those derived from sources such as tetraethyl orthosilicate applied at a low temperature promote successful cell growth, due partly to the high surface area of the porous matrix. The incorporation of presynthesized iron oxide nanoparticles led to a material that showed rapid heating in response to an applied ac magnetic field, an excellent property for use in gene expression and, with further improvement, chemical-free sterilization. These methods also avoid changing polymer feedstocks and contaminating or even damaging commonly used selective laser sintering printers. The chemically treated 3D printed matrices presented herein have great potential for use in addressing current issues surrounding bone grafting, implants, and skeletal repair, and a wide variety of possible incorporated material combinations could impact many other areas.

It is widely accepted that cancer develops as a results of mutations in cell growth pathway related genes particularly those mutations that occur in growth factor receptor pathways such as the cell surface Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) and Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor (FGFR) pathways and in tumor suppressor genes such as p53, APC and PTEN. Detection of these mutations is critical not only for early detection of cancerous cells but also for decisions on what therapy should be applied to treat the patient. For example, mutations in the intracellular downstream signaling proteins rat sarcoma viral oncogenes KRAS, NRAS and HRAS can produce resistance to a particular therapeutic agent. In this context of ‘Precision Medicine’ tumor gene mutations have classically been measured in the DNA isolated from formalinfixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tumor biopsy tissue. However, surgical tumor biopsies are not only invasive and risky, but are extremely difficult for inaccessible and fragile organs such as the lungs. A recent study confirmed that this standard prognostic procedure is woefully inadequate [1]. A localized tumor biopsy could miss mutations in a distal region of the tumor that might radically change a person’s chances for survival. And although biopsies can provide data about specific mutations that might make a tumor vulnerable to targeted therapies, that information is static and bound to become inaccurate as the cancer evolves. Minimally invasive procedures such as taking blood is simple in comparison, urine sampling is even simpler. Several groups have reported that the mutational landscape of a patient’s tumor can be measured simply by monitoring the mutational status of the circulating cell-free tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the patient’s blood. However, this requires a highly sensitive technique and to date most large oncology research centers have resorted to BEAMing PCR2 to achieve this. This is partly because tumor DNA is much harder to detect in the circulation due to the large excess of wildtype DNA. There is typically less of it in the blood. In people with very advanced cancers, tumors might be the source of most of the circulating DNA in the blood, but more commonly, ctDNA makes up barely 1% of the total and possibly as little as 0.01%. Several groups in recent years have reported using ctDNA to study patients who were being treated with EGFR inhibitors. Looking for example for known KRAS mutations that confer resistance; or for mutations that prevent drugs from binding to their target [3-5].

Biodiesel production in the U.S. from vegetable oils has increased substantially during the past decade. However, its further increase is limited by the low amounts of oil produced per hectare from temperate oilseed crops. Recently novel transgenic sugarcane has been developed to accumulate both sugars and lipids in stems, making it a promising dual-purpose feedstock to produce both ethanol and biodiesel. In this study, two lines of the transgenic lipid producing sugarcane (lipid-cane) and the non-transformed sugarcane were characterized and processed. The total lipid concentrations were 0.7%, 0.9% and 1.3% for the non-transformed sugarcane and lipid-cane lines19B and 25 C, respectively. Lipid composition analysis showed that about 31-33% of the total lipids were triacylglycerols, main feedstock for biodiesel production, for the lipid-cane samples, while this value was only 5% for the non-transformed sugarcane. By processing the sugarcane stems with a juicer, about 90% of the sugars and 60% of the lipids were extracted with juice. The extracted sugars in juice were fermented to ethanol and the lipids were later recovered from the fermented juice using organic solvents. The recovered lipids from the fermented juice were 0.3, 0.5 and 0.8 g/100 g dry stem for the non-transformed sugarcane and lipid-cane lines 19B and 25 C, respectively. This study proved the concept of the lipid and sugar coproduction from the novel lipid-cane, which have a potential to make a large-scale replacement of fossil derived fuel without unrealistic demands on land area. Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), U.S. Department of Energy [DE-AR0000206] The information, data, or work presented herein was funded in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), U.S. Department of Energy, under Award Number DE-AR0000206. The authors thank Mrs. Wei Liu for her great help on sugarcane sample preparations and HPLC sample analysis. Public domain – authored by a U.S. government employee

Advanced materials technologies 2100489 (2021). doi:10.1002/admt.202100489 special issue: "Hot Topic: Carbon, Graphite, and Graphene", Published by Wiley, Weinheim

As a consequence of the chronic world shortage of calf chymosin for cheese-making that exists currently, recombinant DNA technology has been utilized to introduce and express the gene for calf (pro) chymosin in Escherichia coli (Emtage et al., 1983; Marston et al., 1984) and yeast (Mellor et al., 1983). Coagulants such as chymosin initiate a cascade reaction in milk at pH 6.0-6.5 by the selective hydrolysis of a Phe-Met bond in K-casein in the sequence

Circulating cell free tumour derived nucleic acids are becoming recognised as clinically significant and extremely useful biomarkers for detection of cancer and for monitoring the progression of targeted drug therapy and immunotherapy. Screening programmes for colorectal cancer in Europe use the Fetal Immunochemical Test (FIT) test as a primary screener. FIT+ patients are referred to immediate colonoscopy and the positive predictive value (PPV) is usually 25%. In this article, we report a study employing the ColoScape assay panel to detect mutations in the APC, KRAS, BRAF and CTNNB1 genes, in order to collect preliminary performance indicators and plan a future, larger population study. The assay was evaluated on 52 prospectively collected whole-blood samples obtained from FIT+ patients enrolled in the CRC screening programme of ASL NAPOLI 3 SUD, using colonoscopy as confirmation. The assay’s sensitivity for advanced adenomas was 53.8% and the specificity was 92.3%. The PPV was 70.0% and negative predicitive value (NPV) was 85.7%. Workflow optimisation is essential to maximise sensitivity. Of note, four of the six positive cases missed by ColoScape had a less than suboptimal DNA input (data not shown). Had they been ruled out as inadequate, sensitivity would have increased from 53.8% to 69%. However, as stated previously, this is not a clinical trial, but rather an initial, preliminary technical evaluation. In conclusion this study shows that ColoScape is a promising tool and further studies are warranted in order to validate its use for the triage of FIT+ patients.