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Applications of Quantum Chemistry in Biomimetic Syntheses of Polycyclic Furanocembrane Derivatives (2024)
Journal Article
Wang, D., Zhou, T., Ren, J., Hirst, J., Gao, Z., & Tang, B. (2024). Applications of Quantum Chemistry in Biomimetic Syntheses of Polycyclic Furanocembrane Derivatives. SYNLETT, https://doi.org/10.1055/a-2239-6577

This paper summarizes the guidance provided by quantum chemical calculations to the biomimetic syntheses of polycyclic marine furanocembrane derivatives. Polycyclic furanocembrane derivatives are a group of structurally complex and biologically impor... Read More about Applications of Quantum Chemistry in Biomimetic Syntheses of Polycyclic Furanocembrane Derivatives.

Optimizing Excipient Properties to Prevent Aggregation in Biopharmaceutical Formulations (2023)
Journal Article
King, T. E., Humphrey, J. R., Laughton, C. A., Thomas, N. R., & Hirst, J. D. (2024). Optimizing Excipient Properties to Prevent Aggregation in Biopharmaceutical Formulations. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 64(1), 265–275. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01898

Excipients are included within protein biotherapeutic solution formulations to improve colloidal and conformational stability but are generally not designed for the specific purpose of preventing aggregation and improving cryoprotection in solution.... Read More about Optimizing Excipient Properties to Prevent Aggregation in Biopharmaceutical Formulations.

Electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to C2H4: From lab to fab (2023)
Journal Article
Guo, Z., Yang, F., Li, X., Zhu, H., Do, H., Loon Fow, K., …Xu, M. (2024). Electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to C2H4: From lab to fab. Journal of Energy Chemistry, 90, 540-564. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jechem.2023.11.019

The global concerns of energy crisis and climate change, primarily caused by carbon dioxide (CO2), are of utmost importance. Recently, the electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) to high value-added multi-carbon (C2+) products driven by renew... Read More about Electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to C2H4: From lab to fab.

Theoretical analysis of divalent cation effects on aptamer recognition of neurotransmitter targets (2023)
Journal Article
Douaki, A., Stuber, A., Hengsteler, J., Momotenko, D., Rogers, D. M., Rocchia, W., …Garoli, D. (2023). Theoretical analysis of divalent cation effects on aptamer recognition of neurotransmitter targets. Chemical Communications, 59(99), 14713-14716. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3cc04334g

Aptamer-based sensing of small molecules such as dopamine and serotonin in the brain, requires characterization of the specific aptamer sequences in solutions mimicking the in vivo environment with physiological ionic concentrations. In particular, d... Read More about Theoretical analysis of divalent cation effects on aptamer recognition of neurotransmitter targets.

Synergistic engineering of heteronuclear Ni-Ag dual-atom catalysts for high-efficiency CO2 electroreduction with nearly 100% CO selectivity (2023)
Journal Article
Guo, Z., Zhu, H., Yang, G., Wu, A., Chen, Q., Yan, Z., …Xu, M. (2023). Synergistic engineering of heteronuclear Ni-Ag dual-atom catalysts for high-efficiency CO2 electroreduction with nearly 100% CO selectivity. Chemical Engineering Journal, 476, Article 146556. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2023.146556

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) have emerged as attractive materials for the electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction (ECO2R). Dual-atom catalysts (DACs), an extension of SACs, exhibit more compelling functionalities due to the synergistic effects betw... Read More about Synergistic engineering of heteronuclear Ni-Ag dual-atom catalysts for high-efficiency CO2 electroreduction with nearly 100% CO selectivity.

ML meets MLn: machine learning in ligand promoted homogeneous catalysis (2023)
Journal Article
Hirst, J. D., Boobier, S., Coughlan, J., Streets, J., Jacob, P. L., Pugh, O., …Woodward, S. (2023). ML meets MLn: machine learning in ligand promoted homogeneous catalysis. Artificial Intelligence Chemistry, 1(2), Article 100006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aichem.2023.100006

The benefits of using machine learning approaches in the design, optimisation and understanding of homogeneous catalytic processes are being increasingly realised. We focus on the understanding and implementation of key concepts, which serve as condu... Read More about ML meets MLn: machine learning in ligand promoted homogeneous catalysis.

Predicting bioactivity of antibiotic metabolites by molecular docking and dynamics (2023)
Journal Article
Chio, H., Guest, E. E., Hobman, J. L., Dottorini, T., Hirst, J. D., & Stekel, D. J. (2023). Predicting bioactivity of antibiotic metabolites by molecular docking and dynamics. Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling, 123, Article 108508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmgm.2023.108508

Antibiotics enter the environment through waste streams, where they can exert selective pressure for antimicrobial resistance in bacteria. However, many antibiotics are excreted as partly metabolized forms, or can be subject to partial breakdown in w... Read More about Predicting bioactivity of antibiotic metabolites by molecular docking and dynamics.

AI4Green: An Open-Source ELN for Green and Sustainable Chemistry (2023)
Journal Article
Boobier, S., Davies, J. C., Derbenev, I. N., Handley, C. M., & Hirst, J. D. (2023). AI4Green: An Open-Source ELN for Green and Sustainable Chemistry. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 63(10), 2895–2901. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00306

An Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) combining features, including data archival, collaboration tools, and green and sustainability metrics for organic chemistry, is presented. AI4Green is a web-based application, available as open-source code and... Read More about AI4Green: An Open-Source ELN for Green and Sustainable Chemistry.

Dynamic Disorder Drives Exciton Dynamics in Diketopyrrolopyrrole-Thiophene-Containing Molecular Crystals (2023)
Journal Article
Jiang, L., Hirst, J. D., & Do, H. (2023). Dynamic Disorder Drives Exciton Dynamics in Diketopyrrolopyrrole-Thiophene-Containing Molecular Crystals. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 127(11), 5519-5532. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.2c07984

There is a growing interest in controllable molecular materials for potential nanophotonic and quantum information applications where excitons move beyond the incoherent transport regime. Thus, the ability to identify the key parameters that correlat... Read More about Dynamic Disorder Drives Exciton Dynamics in Diketopyrrolopyrrole-Thiophene-Containing Molecular Crystals.

Krein support vector machine classification of antimicrobial peptides (2023)
Journal Article
Redshaw, J., Ting, D. S., Brown, A., Hirst, J. D., & Gärtner, T. (2023). Krein support vector machine classification of antimicrobial peptides. Digital Discovery, 2(2), 502-511. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3dd00004d

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) represent a potential solution to the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance, yet their identification through wet-lab experiments is a costly and time-consuming process. Accurate computational predictions would all... Read More about Krein support vector machine classification of antimicrobial peptides.

Cysteine-Selective Modification of Peptides and Proteins via Desulfurative C−C Bond Formation (2023)
Journal Article
Griffiths, R. C., Smith, F. R., Li, D., Wyatt, J., Rogers, D. M., Long, J. E., …Mitchell, N. (2023). Cysteine-Selective Modification of Peptides and Proteins via Desulfurative C−C Bond Formation. Chemistry - A European Journal, 29(16), Article e202202503. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202202503

The site-selective modification of peptides and proteins facilitates the preparation of targeted therapeutic agents and tools to interrogate biochemical pathways. Among the numerous bioconjugation techniques developed to install groups of interest, t... Read More about Cysteine-Selective Modification of Peptides and Proteins via Desulfurative C−C Bond Formation.

Electronic circular dichroism of proteins computed using a diabatisation scheme (2022)
Journal Article
Rogers, D. M., Do, H., & Hirst, J. D. (2023). Electronic circular dichroism of proteins computed using a diabatisation scheme. Molecular Physics, 121(7-8), Article e2133748. https://doi.org/10.1080/00268976.2022.2133748

Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is a powerful technique employed to study the structure of biomolecules. More accurate calculation of CD from first principles will aid both computational and experimental studies of protein structure and dynamics... Read More about Electronic circular dichroism of proteins computed using a diabatisation scheme.

Machine learning for yield prediction for chemical reactions using in situ sensors (2022)
Journal Article
Davies, J. C., Pattison, D., & Hirst, J. D. (2023). Machine learning for yield prediction for chemical reactions using in situ sensors. Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling, 118, Article 108356. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmgm.2022.108356

Machine learning models were developed to predict product formation from time-series reaction data for ten Buchwald-Hartwig coupling reactions. The data was provided by DeepMatter and was collected in their DigitalGlassware cloud platform. The reacti... Read More about Machine learning for yield prediction for chemical reactions using in situ sensors.

Free energy perturbation calculations of tetrahydroquinolines complexed to the first bromodomain of BRD4 (2022)
Journal Article
Silva, A. F., Guest, E. E., Falcone, B. N., Pickett, S. D., Rogers, D. M., & Hirst, J. D. (2023). Free energy perturbation calculations of tetrahydroquinolines complexed to the first bromodomain of BRD4. Molecular Physics, 121(9-10), Article e2124201. https://doi.org/10.1080/00268976.2022.2124201

Alchemical free energy perturbation (FEP) theory is widely used nowadays to calculate protein–ligand binding energies, often in support of drug discovery endeavours. We assess the accuracy and sensitivity of absolute FEP binding energies with respect... Read More about Free energy perturbation calculations of tetrahydroquinolines complexed to the first bromodomain of BRD4.

N-Hydroxyethyl acrylamide as a functional eROP initiator for the preparation of nanoparticles under “greener” reaction conditions (2022)
Journal Article
Lentz, J. C., Cavanagh, R., Moloney, C., Falcone Pin, B., Kortsen, K., Fowler, H. R., …Howdle, S. M. (2022). N-Hydroxyethyl acrylamide as a functional eROP initiator for the preparation of nanoparticles under “greener” reaction conditions. Polymer Chemistry, 13(42), 6032-6045. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2py00849a

N-Hydroxyethyl acrylamide was used as a functional initiator for the enzymatic ring-opening polymerisation of ϵ-caprolactone and δ-valerolactone. N-Hydroxyethyl acrylamide was found not to undergo self-reaction in the presence of Lipase B from Candid... Read More about N-Hydroxyethyl acrylamide as a functional eROP initiator for the preparation of nanoparticles under “greener” reaction conditions.

Structure–Property Relationships in Amorphous Thieno[3,2-b]thiophene–Diketopyrrolopyrrole–Thiophene-Containing Polymers (2022)
Journal Article
Jiang, L., Hirst, J. D., & Do, H. (2022). Structure–Property Relationships in Amorphous Thieno[3,2-b]thiophene–Diketopyrrolopyrrole–Thiophene-Containing Polymers. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 126(26), 10842-10854. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.2c01650

(Figure Presented) We present calculations of electronic structure properties of disordered conducting polymers containing thieno[3,2b]thiophene, diketopyrrolopyrrole, and thiophene. Atomistic force field parameters for the polymer were optimized to... Read More about Structure–Property Relationships in Amorphous Thieno[3,2-b]thiophene–Diketopyrrolopyrrole–Thiophene-Containing Polymers.

Software tools for green and sustainable chemistry (2022)
Journal Article
Derbenev, I. N., Twycross, J., Dowden, J., & Hirst, J. D. (2022). Software tools for green and sustainable chemistry. Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry, 35, Article 100623. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsc.2022.100623

In this review, we consider green chemistry metrics, related software tools, and the opportunities and challenges for their use in research laboratories. We provide an overview of state-of-the-art software designed both to aid researchers in planning... Read More about Software tools for green and sustainable chemistry.

Alchemical Free Energy Methods Applied to Complexes of the First Bromodomain of BRD4 (2022)
Journal Article
Guest, E. E., Cervantes, L. F., Pickett, S. D., Brooks, C. L., & Hirst, J. D. (2022). Alchemical Free Energy Methods Applied to Complexes of the First Bromodomain of BRD4. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 62(6), 1458-1470. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.1c01229

Accurate and rapid predictions of the binding affinity of a compound to a target are one of the ultimate goals of computer aided drug design. Alchemical approaches to free energy estimations follow the path from an initial state of the system to the... Read More about Alchemical Free Energy Methods Applied to Complexes of the First Bromodomain of BRD4.

Effect of Oriented Electric Fields on Biologically Relevant Iron–Sulfur Clusters: Tuning Redox Reactivity for Catalysis (2022)
Journal Article
Gaughan, S. J. H., Hirst, J. D., Croft, A. K., & Jäger, C. M. (2022). Effect of Oriented Electric Fields on Biologically Relevant Iron–Sulfur Clusters: Tuning Redox Reactivity for Catalysis. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 62(3), 591-601. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.1c00791

Enzyme-based iron-sulfur clusters, exemplified in families such as hydrogenases, nitrogenases, and radical S-Adenosylmethionine enzymes, feature in many essential biological processes. The functionality of biological iron-sulfur clusters extends beyo... Read More about Effect of Oriented Electric Fields on Biologically Relevant Iron–Sulfur Clusters: Tuning Redox Reactivity for Catalysis.