60 Years Prof. Dr. Djurdja Vasic-Racki

A specialissue of “Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Quarterly” is dedicated to Prof. Dr. Durda Vasic-Racki on the occasion of her 60th birthday

Technology Transfer in Biotechnology

Kurzfassung des Vortrags, der am 12.04.2019 vor der Plenarversammlung der Braunschweigischen Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft gehalten wurde

60 Years Prof. Dr. Djurdja Vasic-Racki

A specialissue of “Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Quarterly” is dedicated to Prof. Dr. Durda Vasic-Racki on the occasion of her 60th birthday

I Know I Can\u27t Be the Only Lesbian Out There: an Inductive Thematic Analysis of a Virtual Community of Lesbian Breast Cancer Survivors

Sexual minority women are at a significantly greater risk for developing breast cancer (BC) than heterosexual women. Little is known about the unique BC experiences of lesbian women. The present thesis describes the findings of an inductive thematic analysis of messages posted to a large lesbian-specific discussion forum found on breastcancer.org. Fifteen themes were identified, including privileging sensation over appearance, experiencing heterosexism in medical contexts, believing others perceive a lack of distress over breast loss because of patient’s lesbian sexual orientation, feeling pressure from surgeons to get reconstructive surgery, and viewing the BC journey as a sexual-identity disclosure crisis. In addition, gender expression appeared to moderate the lesbian patients’ experience of BC. For instance, a theme identified among butch-or gender variant patients was enjoying or accepting that others were confused about their gender post-surgery. Femme-lesbian patients, in contrast, reported being frustrated about gender misidentification resulting from breast and hair loss

Beauty from the deep: cnidarians in cosmetics

Cnidarian proteins are considered useful for the development of therapeutics, as well as this they have also received the attention of biotechnology and the cosmetic industries. In 2017 the first ever sea anemone venom peptide cosmetic, named SensAmone P5, was launched by Mibelle Biochemistry. This synthetic peptide is based on the interaction of APHC1, from Heteractis crispa, on the pain relevant ion channel TRPV1. This peptide reduces TRPV1 signalling in-vitro and skin sensitivity in human volunteers. Aside from venoms, jellyfish mucus and collagen are both used in cosmetic preparations. Many legal definitions of animals do not include the invertebrates and thus it is likely that invertebrate proteins are more acceptable as an alternative to mammalian proteins. Mucins are important proteins for moisturisers and using jellyfish as the source appears to be a suitable alternative to bovine and porcine proteins which were previously used. The main structural protein that supports the soft bodied jellyfish is collagen. This collagen appears to be biocompatible with human tissues and thus has been successful as a cosmetic, as well as being used in-vitro for 3D tissue engineering scaffolds. This short communication will discuss the use of Cnidarian proteins in cosmetics

On-line study of polyelectrolyte network formation by interfacial reaction

A modified synthetic boundary experiment of analytical ultracentrifugation has been employed to examine, on-line, polyelectrolyte complex formation at flat interfaces yielding highly swollen membranes/networks. Systematic experiments with sodium alginate as a polyanion and chitosan and poly(l-lysine) as polycations identified the influence of concentration, pH, molar mass, and polycation type on the membrane characteristics and the formation process. The membranes have been evaluated by five characteristics defined herein: total thickness, compactness, heterogeneity, symmetry, and growth. The results confirm the sensitivity of the method suited to elaborate general relationships for polyelectrolyte membrane desig

Limit of Applicability of the Monomer-Enhanced Mechanism for Radical Generation in Persulfate Initiated Polymerization of Acrylamide

The limit of applicability of the monomer-enhanced mechanism as dominant mechanism ruling the initiation process of the polymerization of acrylamide (AM) initiated with potassium persulfate (K2S2O8) has been determined. The kinetics and mechanisms for radical generation were studied in solution at very low monomer and initiator concentrations. The transition of the initiation mechanism from dominant monomer-enhanced dissociation to dominant thermal decomposition of persulfate was observed. Both mechanisms contribute equally to radical generation at [AM] / [K2S2O8] = 4.5. Thermal decomposition dominates at lower [AM] or higher [K2S2O8] and opposite variations promote the monomer-enhanced dissociation. This work also includes quantification of the rate coefficients, efficiencies and activation energies of the mentioned mechanisms, and the kinetics of AM polymerization when photochemically initiated with phenylbis(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)-phosphine oxide.Fil: Rintoul, Ignacio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico Para la Industria Química (i); ArgentinaFil: Wandrey, Christine. Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne; Suiz

Microbial community and inorganic fluid analysis during CO2 storage within the frame of CO2SINK–Long-term experiments under in situ conditions

AbstractMicroorganisms play an important role in the transformation of material within the earth’s crust. The storage of CO2 could affect the composition of inorganic and organic components in the reservoir, consequently influencing microbial activities. To study the microbial induced processes together with geochemical, petrophysical and mineralogical changes, occurring during CO2 storage, long-term laboratory experiments under simulated reservoir P-T conditions were carried out. Clean inner core sections, obtained from the reservoir region at the CO2 storage site in Ketzin (Germany) from a depth of about 650 m, were incubated in high pressure vessels together with sterile synthetic formation brine under in situ P-T conditions of 5.5 MPa and 40 °C. A 16S rDNA based fingerprinting method was used to identify the dominant species in DNA extracts of pristine sandstone samples. Members of the α- and β-subdivisions of Proteobacteria and the Actinobacteria were identified. So far sequences belonging to facultative anaerobic, chemoheterotrophic bacteria (Burkholderia fungorum, Agrobacterium tumefaciens) gaining their energy from the oxidation of organic molecules and a genus also capable of chemolithoautotrophic growth (Hydrogenophaga) was identified.During CO2 incubation minor changes in the microbial community composition were observed. The majority of microbes were able to adapt to the changed conditions. During CO2 exposure increased concentrations of Ca2+, K+, Mg2+ and SO42− were observed. Partially, concentration rises are (i) due to equilibration between rock pore water and synthetic brine, and (ii) between rock and brine, and are thus independent on CO2 exposure. However, observed concentrations of Ca2+, K+, Mg2+ are even higher than in the original reservoir fluid and therefore indicate mineral dissolution due to CO2 exposure