BACKGROUND Neuroenhancement is the use of substances by healthy subjects to enhance mood or cognitive function. The prevalence of neuroenhancement among Swiss university students is unknown. Investigating the prevalence of neuroenhancement among students is important to monitor problematic use and evaluate the necessity of prevention programs. STUDY AIM To describe the prevalence of the use o...

Synthetic vectors represent an attractive alternative approach to viral vectors for gene transfer, in particular into airway epithelial cells for lung-directed gene therapy for cystic fibrosis. Having recently found that guanidinium-cholesterol cationic lipids are efficient reagents for gene transfer into mammalian cell lines in vitro, we have investigated their use for gene delivery into prima...

Coarse grain simulation of proteins in their physiological membrane environment can offer insight across timescales, but requires a comprehensive force field. Parameters are explored for multicomponent bilayers composed of unsaturated lipids DOPC and DOPE, mixed-chain saturation POPC and POPE, and anionic lipids found in bacteria: POPG and cardiolipin. A nonbond representation obtained from mul...

Microporous poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membranes were prepared from PVDF/N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAC) solutions by using upercritical CO2 phase inversion process. As revealed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), he PVDF membranes exhibit morphological characteristics resulting from both liquid–liquid phase separation and crystallization, i.e.,...

Uniformly-sized porous cellulose beads functionalized with amidoxime groups were prepared for the first time using a microfluidic method N-methylmorpholine N-oxide (NMMO) monohydrate as solvent. The molten state dope in NMMO (cell/NMMO dope) disperse phase and hot mineral oil continuous used T-junction chip to produce uniformly-sized cell/NMMO droplets. Coagulation of droplet at high temperatur...

Wet-spun polyacrylonitrile fibres are the main precursor for high strength carbon fibres. The properties of carbon fibres strongly depend on the structure of the precursor fibre. Polyacrylonitrile fibres were spun from solutions with varying solvent/nonsolvent content and different draw ratios. Wet-spinning is an immersion precipitation process, thus thermodynamic affinity of spinning dope to t...

Spinning of cellulosic fibers requires the prior dissolution cellulose. 3-Alkyl-1-methylimidazolium ionic liquids have proven to be suitable solvents for that purpose, but degradation cellulose in spinning dope can severe. Suitable stabilizers are therefore required prevent degradation, do not adversely affect spinnability or long-term yellowing behavior fibers. A group twelve renewables-based ...

Our recent coarse-grained (CG) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of membranes with a hemifused-ribbon (λ-shaped) geometry showed curvature-driven demixing leading to enrichment in dioleoyl-phosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE) in a negatively-curved region (at C –0.8 nm) of a DOPE/dipalmitoyl-phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) membrane. Here we extend the analysis with respect to lipid composition and simu...

The human group II secretory phospholipase A, (sPLA,) has been implicated in a number of inflammatory conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis. A continuous fluorescence displacement assay which measures the release of long chain fatty acids [l] has been used to investigate the activity of a recombinant form of this human enzyme (HR PLAJ and is reported here for the first time. Secretory phos...