Microbial extracellular polysaccharides (EPS), produced by a wide range of bacteria, are high molecular weight biopolymers, presenting an extreme diversity in terms of chemical structure and composition. They may be used in many applications, depending on their chemical and physical properties. A rather unexplored aspect is the presence of rare sugars in the composition of some EPS. Rare sugars...

Micelles are excellent devices to be used as controlled drug delivery systems since they exhibit the ability to protect the drug or encapsulated substance from the routes of degradation until they reach the site of action: moreover, they can pass through biological barriers and reach intracellular compartments. In addition, when a drug is administered and released from the dosage form, the kine...

The overview describes the industrial application of homogeneous catalysts for the chemical industry. In the first part, some theoretical background is given on organometallic complexes and homogeneous catalysis followed by a description of the prerequisites and current problems for their industrial application. Selected examples of industrially useful catalysts for the manufacture of bulk and ...

Chitosan is a deacetylated product of chitin produced by chitin deacetylase, an enzyme that hydrolyses acetamido groups of N-acetylglucosamine in chitin. Chitosan is a natural polymer that has great potential in biotechnology and in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries. Commercially, it is produced from chitin via a harsh thermochemical process that shares most of the disadvantages of a...

Spectrophotometric micro determination of allopurinol (ALP) via charge-transfer formation is described. This includes the utility of some π-acceptors such as 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-p-benzoquinone (DDQ) and 3,6-dichloro-2,5-dihydroxy-p-benzoquinone (p-CLA) for estimation of ALP drug (act as è-donor). These reactions are applied for determination of ALP in its pharmaceutical preparations coming...

Whether or not a given chemical substance is readily biodegradable is an important piece of information in risk screening for both new and existing chemicals. Despite the relatively low cost of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tests, data are often unavailable and biodegradability must be estimated. In this paper, we focus on the predictive value of selected Biowin models a...

Drug reactivity and bioactivation are of major concern to the development of potential drug candidates in the pharmaceutical industry (Chem Res Toxicol 17:3-16, 2004; Chem Res Toxicol 19:889-893, 2006). Identifying potentially problematic compounds as soon as possible in the discovery process is of great importance, so often early in vitro screening is used to speed up attrition. Identification...

Cyclic voltammograms, at the carbon paste electrode were recorded for -tocopherol dissolved in surfactant + ethanol + water and surfactant+acetonitrile+water mixed solvent systems containing ammonia. The oxidation potential of the vitamin was found to vary with a change in the surfactant, being more positive in cationic surfactants as compared to the anionic or nonionic surfactants. Differentia...

Pharmaceuticals can enter the soil environment when animal slurries and sewage sludge are applied to land as a fertiliser or during irrigation with contaminated water. These pharmaceuticals may then be taken up by soil organisms possibly resulting in toxic effects and/or exposure of organisms higher up the food chain. This study investigated the influence of soil properties on the uptake and de...

1. INTRODUCTION Despite being largely absent from natural products and biological processes, fluorine plays a conspicuous and increasingly important role within pharmaceuticals and agro-chemicals, as well as in materials science. 1a−c Indeed, as many as 35% of agrochemicals and 20% of pharmaceuticals on the market contain fluorine. 1d Fluorine is the most electronegative element in the periodic...