No Added Chemicals

Hans Krebs The way living things can maintain its function, do many activities, or just simply to survive in this harsh world sometimes can be mysterious. However, there is one way to understand these mysterious processes and science, especially chemical science, can help us to understand these processes. These processes are sometimes metabolic processes and it can be seen as chemical reactions that happen in living things, from bacteria to blue whale. One of the metabolic processes is called citric acid cycle (CAC) or famously named Krebs cycle; named after its discoverer Hans Krebs. Hans Krebs himself was awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953.

Amide is one of the organic functional groups that can be found ubiquitously in the nature. It plays important role in living things as the main building blocks of proteins which involve with many functions, from catalysis to structural support. Besides that, amide functionality is featured in many natural products and drugs. Examples of peptide-bearing compounds Since, it is quite common to find this functionality in natural products and synthetic compounds, a question is raised from this phenomenon. How trivial is it to make amide bond?

25.7 MW Lauingen Energy Park, Germany As part of solutions for the climate change, the demand for 'clean' energy has increased in the recent years. One of the piece of technologies that can fulfil this demand is solar cell which it can harness the solar energy. At this stage, the conventional solar cell, which is made of a thick layer of doped-silicon, is very expensive and the manufacturing process is energy consuming process. Another type of solar cell, dye sensitised solar cell (DSSC) or Grätzell cell, can be a solution for the expensive silicon solar cell. Instead of expensive silicon as semiconductor, cheaper TiO 2 is used and ruthenium-based complex compound as solar light harvester. However, this cell has a problem with solvent leakage, which can be  not environmentally friendly. The efficiency of this cell is also a problem; DSSC's efficiency is up to 11% while Si-based solar cell can be up to 25%. To address these problems, another type of solar cell has been

In the recent decade, chemists have taken nature as its inspiration in many ways; one of them is in medicinal chemistry. Many natural products have been screened for their bioactivities to develop new generation of therapeutic agents for 'incurable' diseases such as cancer. However, there is one major drawback from taking natural product as drug. This problem is its complex structure which makes it difficult to synthesise especially in large scale. Anticancer drugs: natural products (paclitaxel) and coordination complex (cisplatin) Luckily, a simple coordination complex, such as cisplatin, gives similar efficacy as natural product-based drug and simple coordination complex is used to treat 80% of all solid cancers. It is noteworthy that the market for this drug is around $1 billion.

In these days, the chemistry of natural products is still a massive attraction for chemists, especially organic synthetic chemists. New substances, more or less complicated, more or less useful, are constantly discovered and investigated with all the techniques and tools that the early organic chemists could only imagine. In the course of these studies, the researchers are challenged by the preparation of the compounds which somehow drives this field forward. This time, we'll see the historical perspective of this 'ancient' research field and also future prospective that chemistry of natural products can offer.

This time, it is less than a week until Christmas and it is quite appropriate if this time we are digging one of the stories around Christmas, which is the adoration of the magi. The magi, sometimes they are called the wise men or kings, travelled from far east to Bethlehem following the Star of Bethlehem to pay homage to the Infant Jesus. They also brought three gifts to be given to the King of kings: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. This story and the gifts they brought are immortalised in several Christmas carols, one of them is  "We Three Kings " by John Henry Hopkins. We Three Kings  arr. Martin Neary and sung by King's College Choir at 2012 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. For lyrics, click here . This time, for Christmas special, we'll see the chemical significance of those gifts for the Infant Jesus.