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This contribution brings to the fore the lesbian silences veiled by dominant theorizations of queer studies in academia, nowadays more concerned with analyzing social affections such as queer diasporas, terrorism, human rights and necropolitics and positing intersectionality as the key configuration of queer epistemology. Yet, I am interested in eliciting how such existing approaches can help chart queer horizons in more inclusive ways without ignoring lesbian voices. Concomitantly, I will posit such lesbian positions as critical epistemologies we cannot do without, since only by unfolding past accretive knowledge on gender and sexuality will queer discourses become inclusive and relational. Hence, this article traces the evolution and theoretical shifts that queer theory has undergone in the last decades and further explores why "the lesbian" continues being dismissed as a marginal site of knowledge and material production, enacting a closeted identity, muted by other legitimate discourses in academia. Such a move toward new queer and affective frameworks, while convincingly essential, should not overshadow lesbian criticism. By drawing on relational and affective modes of being, I suggest recasting "the lesbian" as both a textual and ontological possibility capable of embracing the variety of lesbian-identified persons traditionally silenced by queer theory's canonical institutionalization.

Helicobacter pylori ( Hp ) infection is the main cause of peptic ulcer and gastric cancer. Hp eradication rates have fallen due to increasing bacterial resistance to currently used broad-spectrum antimicrobials. We have designed, synthesized, and tested redox variants of nitroethylene- and 7-nitrobenzoxadiazole-based inhibitors of the essential Hp protein flavodoxin. Derivatives of the 7-nitrobenzoxadiazole lead, carrying reduced forms of the nitro group and/or oxidized forms of a sulfur atom, display high therapeutic indexes against several reference Hp strains. These inhibitors are effective against metronidazole-, clarithromycin-, and rifampicin-resistant Hp clinical isolates. Their toxicity for mice after oral administration is low, and, when administered individually at single daily doses for 8 days in a mice model of Hp infection, they decrease significantly Hp gastric colonization rates and are able to eradicate the infection in up to 60% of the mice. These flavodoxin inhibitors constitute a novel family of Hp -specific antimicrobials that may help fight the constant increase of Hp antimicrobial-resistant strains.

Investigation of the excited-state decay dynamics of transition-metal systems is a crucial step for the development of photoswitchable molecular based materials with applications in growing fields as energy conversion, data storage, or molecular devices. The photophysics of these systems is an entangled problem arising from the interplay of electronic and geometrical rearrangements that take place on a short time scale. Several factors play a role in the process: various electronic states of different spin and chemical character are involved, the system undergoes important structural variations and several nonradiative processes can occur. Computational chemistry is a useful tool to get insight into the microscopic description of the photophysics of these materials, since it provides unique information about the character of the electronic spin states involved, the energetics and time evolution of the system. In this review article, we present an overview of the state of the art methodologies available to address the several aspects that have to be incorporated to properly describe the deactivation of excited states in transition-metal complexes. The most recent developments in theoretical methods are discussed and illustrated with examples., (© 2019 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Silver-catalyzed endo-selective and copper-catalyzed exo-selective asymmetric [3 + 2] cycloadditions of acrylates to chiral iminoesters derived from D-glyceraldehyde have been investigated. The reaction diastereoselectively provides highly functionalized pyrrolidines. This approach was used to develop the first asymmetric synthesis of a key intermediate in the synthesis of pyrrolidine influenza neuramidinase inhibitors.

Helicobacter pylori (Hp) infection affects one-half of the human population and produces a variety of diseases from peptic ulcer to cancer. Current eradication therapies achieve modest success rates (around 70%), resistance to the antibiotics of choice is on the rise, and vaccination has not proved to be successful yet. Using an essential Hp protein, flavodoxin, as target, we identified three low-molecular-weight flavodoxin inhibitors with bactericidal anti-Hp properties. To improve their therapeutic indexes, we have now identified and tested 123 related compounds. We have first tested similar compounds available. Then we have designed, synthesized, and tested novel variants for affinity to flavodoxin, MIC for Hp, cytotoxicity, and bactericidal effect. Some are novel bactericidal inhibitors with therapeutic indexes of 9, 38 and 12, significantly higher than those of their corresponding leads. Developing novel Hp-specific antibiotics will help fighting Hp resistance and may have the advantage of not generally perturbing the bacterial flora.

Alpha helices are useful scaffolds to build biologically active peptides. The intrinsic stability of an alpha-helix is a key feature that can be successfully designed, and it is governed by the constituting amino acid residues. Their individual contributions to helix stability are given, according to Lifson-Roig theory, by their w parameters, which are known for all proteinogenic amino acids, but not for non-natural ones. On the other hand, non-natural, conformationally-restricted amino acids can be used to impart biochemical stability to peptides intended for in vivo administration. Efficient design of peptides based on these amino acids requires the previous determination of their w parameters. We begin here this task by determining the w parameters of two restricted analogs of alanine: (alpha-methyl)alanine and 1-aminocyclopropanecarboxylic acid. According to their w values (alpha-methyl)alanine is almost as good a helix forming residue as alanine, while 1-aminocyclopropanecarboxylic acid is, similarly to proline, a helix breaker.

The analytical resolution of different derivatives of cis c(6)Phe (cyclohexane analogs of phenylalanine) was tested by HPLC using the mixed 10-undecenoate/3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate of amylose bonded on allylsilica gel as the chiral stationary phase. The same chiral support has allowed the enantioseparation of racemate cis-4 on a semipreparative column (150 x 20 mm ID) with a mixture of n-hexane/2-propanol/chloroform as the mobile phase. Some 200-300 mg of the optically pure enantiomers were isolated and transformed into the N-benzyloxycarbonyl amino acids. The X-ray diffraction structure of (1R;2R)-4 is reported., (Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)