Current Organic Chemistry - Volume 18, Issue 2, 2014

The use of polymers in different fields of modern medicine has generated significant advances in tissue engineering, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Polymers have been used to control the rate of drug release, prevent toxicity, protect drugs from degradation before delivery, target drugs to the site of action, improve absorption, bioavailability and therapeutic efficacy. Although synthetic polymers allow producing tailo Read More

The past decade has witnessed the development of innovative biosensing technologies for detecting pathogens, and evaluating the anti-microbial susceptibility test in the infectious diseases. Recent advances in the field have been focused on the development of miniaturized biosensors with high sensitivity, specificity and stability. Possibility for commercialization is also a key criterion to develop biosensors in reality. In this arti Read More

Silver is a well known antimicrobial agent against a wide range of microorganisms – over 650 microorganisms from different classes, such as gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, fungi or viruses. Due to the ratio between positive and negative (side) effects, silver gained advantages over many other antimicrobial agents, and especially antibiotics. The potential applications of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) are strongly influe Read More

As traditional antimicrobial approaches become less effective, novel alternatives in treating resistant infections are required. Nanotechnology is an emerging field recently exploited for its numerous biomedical applications. Magnetic nanoparticles has proved their anti-microbial properties when used as drug delivery systems and recent proclivity propose Fe3O4 derived nanosystems as efficient anti-biofilm development indicators Read More

Metal oxide nanoparticles represent a new class of important materials that are increasingly being developed for use in research and health-related applications. Although the in vitro antibacterial activity of zinc oxides and some other zinc compounds has been known for quite some time, only in the last few years nanoparticles of ZnO have been investigated for their antibacterial activity, the knowledge about it remaining Read More

Although molecular medicine has developed numerous antimicrobial drugs to kill or inhibit microbes, many infectious diseases remain difficult to treat because of challenges, such as intracellular infections, acquired resistance, and adverse side effects. Nanotechnology has made significant progress over the past decades and is introducing a new paradigm in pharmacotherapy. Nanoparticles have many unique physicochemi Read More

Secosteroids are an important group of modified steroids, which exhibits a variety of different biological activities. Studies on secosteroids have shown that modifications of the rigid tetracyclic steroidal carbon skeleton by cleavage of the internal C-C bonds provides more flexible compounds with new biological properties. The search for steroid compounds analogs with improved biological properties includes ring transformati Read More

β-Amino ketones are of increasing interest owing to their utility as important synthetic precursors in the synthesis of bioactive molecules and natural products. As a result numerous syntheses of β-amino ketones have emerged in recent years. Of particular significance are those methods that allow access to stereopure β-amino ketones. This review highlights recent advances in stereoselective syntheses of β-amino ketone Read More