Inorganic Biology

Inorganic polyphosphates in biology: structure, metabolism, and function.

At the interface of inorganic chemistry and biology.

H ighlighting this issue of PNAS is a Special Feature comprising 11 Perspectives and 37 research articles covering various aspects of bioinorganic chemistry, the branch of chemistry that is concerned particularly with the properties and roles of metal ions in biology. The recognition of the presence of iron-containing compounds in blood can be traced back at least as far as the 19th century. Ho...

Inorganic and Bio-inorganic Chemistry

Linking Evolution in Silico, Hardware, and Chemistry to discover or engineer Inorganic Biology

In our laboratory we have been developing new approaches to discover the ‘transition-toevolvability’ in chemistry. This is because if we can discover or engineer an abiotic system that can evolve (we could define this as an inorganic chemical cell –iCHELL, see Figure)[1] we might be able to suggest that synthetic biology can exist in many chemical forms, of which the terrestrial biology found o...

Inorganic phosphate nanorods are a novel fluorescent label in cell biology

We report the first use of inorganic fluorescent lanthanide (europium and terbium) ortho phosphate [LnPO4.H2O, Ln = Eu and Tb] nanorods as a novel fluorescent label in cell biology. These nanorods, synthesized by the microwave technique, retain their fluorescent properties after internalization into human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC), 786-O cells, or renal carcinoma cells (RCC). The...