Recent developments in protein–ligand affinity mass spectrometry

This review provides an overview of direct and indirect technologies to screen protein–ligand interactions with mass spectrometry. These technologies have as a key feature the selection or affinity purification of ligands in mixtures prior to detection. Specific fields of interest for these technologies are metabolic profiling of bioactive metabolites, natural extract screening, and the screening of libraries for bioactives, such as parallel synthesis libraries and small combichem libraries. The review addresses the principles of each of the methods discussed, with a focus on developments in recent years, and the applicability of the methods to lead generation and development in drug discovery

Studying protein–protein affinity and immobilized ligand–protein affinity interactions using MS-based methods

This review discusses the most important current methods employing mass spectrometry (MS) analysis for the study of protein affinity interactions. The methods are discussed in depth with particular reference to MS-based approaches for analyzing protein–protein and protein–immobilized ligand interactions, analyzed either directly or indirectly. First, we introduce MS methods for the study of intact protein complexes in the gas phase. Next, pull-down methods for affinity-based analysis of protein–protein and protein–immobilized ligand interactions are discussed. Presently, this field of research is often called interactomics or interaction proteomics. A slightly different approach that will be discussed, chemical proteomics, allows one to analyze selectivity profiles of ligands for multiple drug targets and off-targets. Additionally, of particular interest is the use of surface plasmon resonance technologies coupled with MS for the study of protein interactions. The review addresses the principle of each of the methods with a focus on recent developments and the applicability to lead compound generation in drug discovery as well as the elucidation of protein interactions involved in cellular processes. The review focuses on the analysis of bioaffinity interactions of proteins with other proteins and with ligands, where the proteins are considered as the bioactives analyzed by MS

Polychaeten als Parasiten der Laichgallerten von Loligo

Volume: 40Start Page: 635End Page: 63

Orange Sky: Balancing commitment to cause and well-being

At the beginning of February 2024, Jo Senz, the senior manager of people and safety at the non-profit company Orange Sky Australia (Orange Sky), looked at her wall calendar in disbelief. She realized she only had a few days left before her meeting with the chief executive officer (CEO) to present a draft people strategy. Senz desperately needed to find new ways to both navigate the increasing pressures on her staff and improve well-being among the organization’s workforce. With 73 employees and roughly 3,000 volunteers spread throughout Australia and New Zealand, recent staff engagement data had indicated a decline in well-being metrics since the start of the pandemic in 2020. Although people loved working and volunteering with the company, being so purpose driven meant that often people would go above and beyond for the organization. Supporting team members had become a pressing issue for Senz, as was the fact that so many of the voluntary leadership positions at Orange Sky remained unfilled despite the organization’s hardworking and motivated volunteers.From talking with countless employees and volunteers, she knew that the good news was that Orange Sky’s organizational culture was perceived as positive, strong, and appealing to many as a relatively new provider of much-needed services in the charitable sector. Those aspects of the culture were working to Senz’s advantage. Yet she wondered whether there were aspects of the organizational culture and espoused values that were not being fulfilled despite the best of intentions. Even with 20 years of experience as a human resources (HR) manager for large corporate organizations prior to her current role, she was grappling with new challenges as the broader HR landscape evolved to accommodate a focus on well-being. Plus, she had the added complexity of designing and managing the processes related to the thousands of volunteers that Orange Sky relied upon to deliver its services every week.Senz laughed for a moment at the irony that one of her most pressing issues was the well-being of others, given the constant demands on her attention, including a never-ending list of urgent tasks at work and the inevitable chaos at home tied to being a mother of school-aged children.<br/

Niobium Coatings for the HIE-ISOLDE QWR Superconducting Accelerating Cavities

The HIE-ISOLDE (High Intensity and Energy at ISOLDE) project is the upgrade of the existing ISOLDE (Isotope Separator On Line DEvice) facility at CERN, which is dedicated to the production of a large variety of radioactive ion beams for nuclear physics experiments. A new linear accelerator made of 20 ȕ=10.3% and 12 ȕ=6.3% quarter-wave resonators (QWR) superconducting (SC) accelerating cavities at 101 MHz will be built, and in a first phase two cryomodules of 5 high-ȕ cavities each are scheduled to accelerate first beams in 2015. The cavities are made of a copper substrate, with a sputter-coated superconductive niobium (Nb) layer, operated at 4.5 K with an accelerating field of 6 MV/m at 10W Radio-Frequency (RF) losses (Q=4.5· 108). In this paper we will discuss the baseline surface treatment and coating procedure which allows obtaining the required performance, as well as the steps undertaken in order to prepare series production of the required number of cavities guaranteeing their quality and functionality