Fluorinated Molecules and Nanotechnology: Future 'Avengers' against the Alzheimer's Disease?

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a serious health concern, affecting millions of people globally, which leads to cognitive impairment, dementia, and inevitable death. There is still no medically accepted treatment for AD. Developing therapeutic treatments for AD is an overwhelming challenge in the medicinal field, as the exact mechanics underlying its devastating symptoms is still not completely understood. Rather than the unknown mechanism of the disease, one of the limiting factors in developing new drugs for AD is the blood-brain barrier (BBB). A combination of nanotechnology with fluorinated molecules is proposed as a promising therapeutic treatment to meet the desired pharmacokinetic/physiochemical properties for crossing the BBB passage. This paper reviews the research conducted on fluorine-containing compounds and fluorinated nanoparticles (NPs) that have been designed and tested for the inhibition of amyloid-beta (A beta) peptide aggregation. Additionally, this study summarizes fluorinated molecules and NPs as promising agents and further future work is encouraged to be effective for the treatment of AD

Antimicrobial Activity of Some Indian Medicinal Plants

The antimicrobial potential of seventy-seven extracts from twenty-four plants was screened against eight bacteria and four pathogenic fungi, using microbroth dilution assay. Lowest concentration of the extract, which inhibits any visual microbial growth after treatment with p-iodonitrotetrazolium violet, was considered to be minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Water extracts of Acacia nilotica, Justicia zelanica, Lantana camara and Saraca asoca exhibited good activity against all the bacteria tested and the MIC was recorded in range of 9.375–37.5 µg/ml and 75.0–300.0 µg/ml against the bacterial and fungal pathogens, respectively. The other extracts of Phyllanthus urinaria, Thevetia nerifolia, Jatropha gossypifolia Saraca asoca, Tamarindus indica, Aegle marmelos, Acacia nilotica, Chlorophytum borivilianum, Mangifera indica, Woodfordia fruticosa and Phyllanthus emblica showed antimicrobial activity in a range of 75–1200 µg/ml

<i>In Vivo</i> Efficacy of a Synthetic Coumarin Derivative in a Murine Model of Aspergillosis

<div><p>Despite advances in therapeutic modalities, aspergillosis remains a leading cause of mortality. This has necessitated the identification of effective and safe antifungal molecules. In the present study, <i>in vivo</i> safety and antifungal efficacy of a coumarin derivative, <i>N</i>, <i>N, N</i>-Triethyl-11-(4-methyl-2-oxo-2<i>H</i>-benzopyran-7-yloxy)-11-oxoundecan-1-aminium bromide (SCD-1), was investigated. The maximum tolerable dose of compound was determined according to OECD 423 guidelines. The compound could be assigned to category IV of the Globally Harmonized System and its LD₅₀ cut-off was found to be 2000 mg/kg body weight. The survival increased in <i>Aspergillus fumigatus-</i>infected mice treated with a dose of 200 mg/kg, orally or 100 mg/kg body weight, intraperitoneally, of SCD-1 in comparison to infected-untreated animals. The SCD-1 treatment resulted in significant reduction in colony counts in vital organs of the animals. Its protective effect was also observed on day 14 as there was marked reduction in fungal colonies. The treatment with SCD-1 also reduced the levels of serum biochemical parameters with respect to infected-untreated animals. It could be concluded that SCD-1 is a quite safe antifungal compound, which conferred dose dependent protection against experimental aspergillosis. Therefore, SCD-1 holds potential for developing new formulations for aspergillosis.</p></div

European Union legislation for demand-side management and public policies for demand response

Energy is now intrinsically linked to technological and social development, powering all such systems. The use of fossil fuels to supply the required energy is causing global environmental and health issues and is impacting on all life forms on the planet. Given the increasing energy use, anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are consequentially increasing. A critical and evolutionary way of thinking about the energy and resources demand management and supply is necessary because there is a clear concern about irreversible impacts on the world and a scarcity of the resources as well. At the same time, all the energy and resource use processes should be optimized to maximize the benefits, reduce the costs and promote stakeholders network, toward a circular economy. This could be the way to supply the demand without increasing the scarcity of the resources and to simultaneously achieve environmental benefits. At the same time, creating an educational grid is important to change the established paradigms, to promote critical thinking about the wasted resources and thinking holistically about overall consumption. This paradigm shift is changing the market, making it more competitive and reducing inefficiency by promoting the efficient use of resources. In the XXI century, legislation and public policies which consider sustainability approaches are constantly improving, trying to fix the pathways to avoid climate changes and achieve energy efficiency, but at the same time, the energy and resources demand still increasing to a no sustainable way to the social and environmental aspects.InPath-TES -Innovation Pathways for Thermal Energy Storage and BAMB -Building as Materials Banks–European projects funded by the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation – Horizon 2020This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 642384.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio