A facile approach to hydrophilic oxidized fullerenes and their derivatives as cytotoxic agents and supports for nanobiocatalytic systems

A facile, environment-friendly, versatile and reproducible approach to the successful oxidation of fullerenes (oxC60) and the formation of highly hydrophilic fullerene derivatives is introduced. This synthesis relies on the widely known Staudenmaier’s method for the oxidation of graphite, to produce both epoxy and hydroxy groups on the surface of fullerenes (C60) and thereby improve the solubility of the fullerene in polar solvents (e.g. water). The presence of epoxy groups allows for further functionalization via nucleophilic substitution reactions to generate new fullerene derivatives, which can potentially lead to a wealth of applications in the areas of medicine, biology, and composite materials. In order to justify the potential of oxidized C60 derivatives for bio-applications, we investigated their cytotoxicity in vitro as well as their utilization as support in biocatalysis applications, taking the immobilization of laccase for the decolorization of synthetic industrial dyes as a trial case.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Measurement of the neutral kaon regeneration amplitude in carbon at momenta below 1 GeV/c

The neutral kaon regeneration amplitude in carbon at momenta between 250 and 750~MeV/$c$ was determined by measuring the interference of inherent and coherently regenerated \PKS\ amplitudes. This interference appears in the rates of initially pure (tagged) \PKz\ and \PaKz\ decaying to \Pgpp\Pgpm\ after crossing a carbon absorber

Contribution of CPLEAR to the physics of the neutral kaon system

We present the physics results of the CP-- and CPT--violation measurements performed by CPLEAR. CPLEAR has experimentally determined for the first time, the violation of T invariance and is able to disentangle all the CP-- and CPT--violating quantities from each other. This allows each of the CPT violating parameters to be determined with a precision of a few $10^{-4}$ and, in particular, the mass and width equality between the \kn and \knb to be tested down to the level of $10^{-19}$ GeV. Moreover, the precision of the CPLEAR measurements allows us to probe for the first time physics on a scale approaching the Planck mass

Inhibition of platelet aggregation and immunomodulation of NK lymphocytes by administration of ascorbic acid

904-908Platelets aggregation around migrating tumor cells offers protection against the cytotoxic activity of the natural killers cells (NKC). The ascorbic acid in 3X10-3Μ concentration completely inhibited platelet aggregation, decreased thromboxane B2 levels, and inhibited the expression of platelet membranic receptor GpIIb/IIIa in non stimulated platelets, and increased the NKC cytotoxicity in an average rate of 105, 61, and 285% in the NKC/targets cells ratios 12.5:1, 25:1 and 50:1 respectively. The results suggest the role of ascorbic acid in increasing the susceptibility of tumor cells to NKC; the ascorbic acid could be used as part of a multidrug therapy to treat diseases which up to now have been treated only through chemotherapy

Fatigue crack initiation and growth behavior in a notch with periodic overloads in the low-cycle fatigue regime of FV566 ex-service steam turbine blade material

The effect of periodic overloads on crack initiation, growth rate and fatigue life, within a notch stress field representative of a turbine blade root fixing has been investigated. Bend bars made from FV566 martensitic stainless steel were extracted from the root of ex-service power plant turbine blades and representative notches introduced. These notched plain bend bars were loaded plastically in the low cycle fatigue regime and were tested with overloads up to 150% of the cyclic baseload every 150 baseload cycles. A periodic overload of 50% of the cyclic baseload increased the number of cycles to crack initiation and slightly retarded the crack growth rates of both short and long cracks, leading to a slight improvement in fatigue life. The results suggest that small overloads (less than 10%) are not expected to significantly impact fatigue lifetimes or service scheduling of components such as Low Pressure steam turbine blades

Towards Novel Multifunctional Pillared Nanostructures:Effective Intercalation of Adamantylamine in Graphene Oxide and Smectite Clays

Multifunctional pillared materials are synthesized by the intercalation of cage-shaped adamantylamine (ADMA) molecules into the interlayer space of graphite oxide (GO) and aluminosilicate clays. The physicochemical and structural properties of these hybrids, determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), Raman and X-ray photoemission (XPS) spectroscopies and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) show that they can serve as tunable hydrophobic/hydrophilic and stereospecific nanotemplates. Thus, in ADMA-pillared clay hybrids, the phyllomorphous clay provides a hydrophilic nanoenvironment where the local hydrophobicity is modulated by the presence of ADMA moieties. On the other hand, in the ADMA-GO hybrid, both the aromatic rings of GO sheets and the ADMA molecules define a hydrophobic nanoenvironment where sp(3)-oxo moieties (epoxy, hydroxyl and carboxyl groups), present on GO, modulate hydrophilicity. As test applications, these pillared nanostructures are capable of selective/stereospecific trapping of small chlorophenols or can act as cytotoxic agents