Throughout history carbon monoxide (CO) has been thought of as a toxic gas.¹ However, over the past 60 years CO was found to be endogenous with distinct physiological functions and a large therapeutic potential.^{2, 3 4} As a therapeutic, CO modulates the immune system, exerts redox control in the mitochondria, acts as a cytoprotective, and is a vasodilator.

Mass spectrometry is a powerful analytical technique, but one of the biggest challenges is in differentiating stereoisomers. Techniques such as NMR and X-ray are good at this, but they typically require pure samples and significantly greater amounts of material than mass spectrometry. We have developed a simple mass spectrometry method that can differentiate pentoses and hexoses, and determine the linkage position and anomericity of disaccharides at nanomolar concentrations in complex mixtures.

Transition state theory is chemistry’s most important quantitative method for the calculation of rates and qualitative framework for the understanding of rates. Some flaws and limitations of transition state theory were apparent at its beginning, while others have become apparent in recent years from a growing number of reactions found to exhibit “dynamic effects,” that is, experimental kinetic observations that cannot be predicted or understood from statistical rate theories.

Hydrogen sulfide is one of three important gaseous transmitter molecules in mammalian biology. The presence and absence of gasotransmitters have been linked to various processes and disfunctions in the body, from vasodilation to Alzheimer's disease in hydrogen sulfide's case. As a result, there is a substantial push in research to make gasotransmitter-donating systems for biomedical applications.

Nanoscale polymeric particles, in particular self-assembled block copolymer micelles, have been utilized in pharmaceutics for development of novel therapeutic and diagnostic modalities. Advantages of the polymeric micelles include their small size, long circulation in bloodstream, ability to circumvent renal excretion and extravasation at sites of enhanced vascular permeability. They can be designed to facilitate the incorporation of a variety of compounds or even particles through a combination of electrostatic, hydrophobic, and hydrogen bonding interactions.

When the hyperothermophilic anaerobic archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus is grown using elemental sulfur as the terminal electron acceptor, an iron-sulfur storage protein, IssA, is the most highly upregulated protein. IssA stores iron and sulfide as an inorganic anionic polymer of linear ferric sulfide chains with two sulfides bridging each pair of ferric ions. Compounds with this structure are known as thioferrates. Thioferrates occur naturally as the mineral erdite.

In the past decade, two dimensional (2D) nanomaterials has been an active area of research due to their unique mechanical and electronic properties.¹ MoS₂ nanosheets is one of the most studied 2D nanomaterial.