N. E. Quest Volume 1 Issue 2 July 2007

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 1

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Newsletter of NORTH EAST INDIA RESEARCH FORUM

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/northeast_india_research/ http://www.geocities.com/ne_india_research_forum/index.html

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 2

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

EDITORIAL I am really felt blessed and gratified to be a part of this wonderful forum, the North East India Research Forum and it is my great pleasure to avail privilege to write something from editorial board in this issue of N. E. Quest. First of all, I would like to thank, Dr. Arindam Adhikari on behalf of all members of North East Research Group who is the founder of this wonderful forum. In the first issue, in his inspiring editorial column he wrote very honestly and sincerely, how this idea came to his mind and how much he had to do before launching it. Obviously, the NE Quest is a wonderful gift from him to all of us. People like, Dr. Arindam should be ideal for all of us as they have the quality to think out of the box for the well being of the society curving out a particular social issue and focussing it in a higher level with right objectives and perspectives connecting with up-to-date information, knowledge, experiences and emotional intellectuals. So, they are our leader, people’s leader. As he clearly stated in his editorial the objective of the forum is to connect the researchers from North East India so that the greater advantages of sciences could reach the social causes of this scientifically backward part of India. Unquestionably, hailing from this wonderful part of India, we could comprehend better the problems of this regions and it is our duty as well as responsibility to solve our problems ourselves at our level. What I feel, the first and foremost duty of the scientific community to change our attitude with the help of science so that we can evolve out as not only wonderful citizen of India but also beautiful human being of the world. For that, every one of us needs to have a scientific attitude to see our problem and the approach to solve them in a scientific way. Science education at all levels only can make aware people to see their problems scientifically. It needs a great awareness programs to reach every one of the society. So, it is an uphill task for all of us and personally, I feel, it is the right initiation, right beginning to do things right collectively. Surely, we can expect its ripple effect in the coming years soon. I would like to cite one example from Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev’s preach over unscientific ritual in our society how attitude is important for social change. When the Gujarat earthquake happened, about 100000 people died. Some of from our

society want to correlate it with the God’s angry with us. All of us with scientific out look know that an Earth quake is just Mother Earth stretching herself a little bit. It has always been happening. It is just that in India, if the smallest thing happens, 100000 people die. It is because of population density. In other parts of the world, an earthquake would not be a major issue. Everyday there are tremors Japan but casuality is less because they have taken necessary precaution and care about how to build their buildings, how to live there, how to be conscious about this. We have not done anything; we are a country that’s still in God’s hands. Unless we take it into our hands we will be a total mess. This is only one example and we can cite thousand of such examples from different parts of our NE region where superstition or lack of scientific out look is still major issue of concern. The present time most stressing and pressing global issue like global warming only could resolve through change in looking of every country into it with a scientific mind. So, I am, like all of you expecting to use of science not only for personal growth or growth of some small groups of people but to reach the whole human society. Of course, if some one(s) of this forum inspired and benefited to grow at individual level to reach some one like Newton or Einstein, we would have really a ground to be happy and proud out of it. But, as social being we should think for our fellow being at our level best. Therefore, the North East India Research Forum should widen its objectives and work in future so that it could reach every individual of the society for its better and greater objective and perspective of life. I am giving more stress in attitude, as I thoroughly believe like all of you that right attitude is the key to get famous, success and happiness in the society. People with great education and absolutely brilliant brains can fail in life because of their wrong attitude. Attitude affects not only our own performance; it also has profound effect on the attitude of people around us. We all inherit a temperament, which is sum total of our feelings and reactions. It dictates how we behave and is reflected in our over all personality. So, to make a positive change all around us we should work on our temperament first. That’s why Amy Tan rightly says, “If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude”. -Tankeswar Nath

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

CONTENTS 1. THE FORUM

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2. SCIENCE, R&D News

6

3. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: Organic Chemistry 4. NORTH EAST INDIANS MADE US PROUD 5. EVENT AND NEWS FROM NORTH EAST INDIA 6. NORTH EAST INDIA RESEARCH FORUM MEMBERS IN NEWS, AWARDS / FELLOWSHIP RECEIVED BY MEMBERS 7. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ATTENDED BY MEMBERS OF THE FORUM 8. VISIT BY MEMBERS 9. INSTRUMENT OF THE ISSUE – QCM 10. ARTICLES SECTION

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a) Ceria Based Mixed Oxides: Emerging Materials for Auto Exhaust Catalyst Formulation Mr. Pranjal Saikia 14 b) COAL: The most abundant natural fuel Mr. Binoy Kumar Saikia

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c) Ionic Liquids: An Invitation to Innovate Dr. Diganta Sarma

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d) Crystal Polymorphism Mr. Bipul Sarma

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e) Octadecanuclear Manganese Single-Molecule Magnet: Synthesis and Magnetic Properties of [MnII4MnIII14(O)14(OAc)18(hmp)4(hmpH)2(H2O)2] Dr. Akhilesh Kumar Gupta

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f) Rain Drop Size Distribution and Radar Observation of precipitating system Mr. Mahen Konwar

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g) Challenges in the Plant Biotechnology 31

Ms .Nabanita Bhattacharyya 11. ABSTRACT OF PhD THESIS/ RESEARCH WORK a) Ph. D. thesis abstract of Dr. Pompi Hazarika

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(Biofunctionalized gold nanoparticles: Synthesis, Characterization and Applications) b) Ph. D. thesis abstract of Dr. Sasanka Deka

41

(Studies on the Magnetic and Electrical properties of Nanosized Transition Metal Oxides and Ferrites) 12. EVENTS FROM HISTORY OF SCIENCE 13. INFORMATION ABOUT MEMBERS 14. HIGHER STUDY ABROAD ( Country of this Issue: Italy) 15. THROUGH THE LENSE OF FORUM MEMBERS

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

THE FORUM North East India Research Forum was created on 13th November 2004.

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Selection of name for Newsletter There were total 36 proposals submitted by members of the forum for the Newsletter. The name proposed by Mr. Abhishek Choudhury, N. E. QUEST received the maximum number of votes and hence it is accepted as the name of the Newsletter.

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How often should we publish our newsletter '' N. E. Quest'' ? 1. Every 3 months = 61% 2. Every 6 months = 38% 3. Once a year = 0%

1. How we are growing. At the beginning, it was a march hardly with few members and today the forum comprised of a force of more than 140 researchers. 2. Discussions held in the forum • Necessity of directory of all the members of the forum. • Possibility of organising conference in the N E India. • Taking initiation on setting up of South East Asian Scientific Institute. • On selection of Best paper award. 3. Poll conducted and results. • North East India is lacking behind the rest of the country due to1. Geographical constrain =0% 2. Bad leadership = 40% 3. Lack of work culture = 36% 4. Corruption = 18% 5. Apathy from Central Govt. = 4% •

Which area of science is going to dominate by creating a great impact on society in next decade? 1. Nanoscience & nanotechnology = 22% 2. Biotechnology = 11% 3. Nanobiotechnology = 38% 4. Chemical Engineering = 0% 5. Medicine = 11% 6. Others = 16% 7. None = 0%

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Kindly let us know your view regarding the following topic. What activities of this group you like most ? 1. Research articles= 33% 2. Information about vacancy/positions available=10% 3. Way to have a contact with all members =29% 4. Scientific discussions = 14% 5. Others = 2%

4. Future activities Proper planning and consequent implementation always play an important role in every aspect. Some of the topics/activities/suggestions which were being discussed, time to time in the forum will get top priorities in our future activities. Those are mentioned here, • Preparing complete online database of N.E. researchers with details. • Organising conference in the N.E. region-proposed by Dr. Utpal Bora. • Research collaboration among forum members. • Motivate student to opt for science education. • Help master’s students in doing projects in different organisation-proposed by Mr. Khirud Gogoi. • Supporting schools in rural areas by different ways. • Best paper awards. To run the forum smoothly, to make it more organised and to speed up activities, formation of a committee/team is essential. The combined discussion of the moderators and senior members make the forum feel the importance of Advisors, co-ordinator, volunteer, webmasters etc. Of course it needs more discussion and will be approved by poll.

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

SCIENCE, R&D NEWS Life Sciences • Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed a method for increasing plants' tolerance to salt stress and thus preventing stunted growth and even plant death. The method has significant consequences for dealing with soil salinization, which is an acute problem for a wide range of crops in different regions of the world. The work by Prof. Alex Levine and his Ph.D. student Yehoram Leshem, of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University -- published in a recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the U.S. -- not only has opened new insights into a basic understanding of plant responses to salt stress, but also points the way to new applicative pathways for plant breeders to improve salt tolerance in a broad spectrum of agricultural crops. It thus represents a significant step forward that can bring great economic and social benefit to many nations of the world. • A high-tech leaf sensors invented at the University of Colorado-Boulder allow thirsty corn and potato crops to signal farmers of their thirst and indicate how much water they need. The technology, which has been optioned to Agri House Inc., a Berthoud, Colo., high-tech company, includes a sensor less than a tenth the size of a postage stamp that can be clipped to plant leaves, said Research Associate Hans-Dieter Seelig, who invented the device. When the leaves lose enough water to contract to a critical width, the sensor can wirelessly signal computers. This device is very precise, and will allow a plant to receive just the right amount of water. If a plant can tell a water valve when to open and when to close, farmers are going to save a lot of money." • A new technology in Japan could let you control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity. The "brain-machine interface"

developed by Hitachi Inc., Japan analyzes slight changes in the brain's blood flow and translates brain motion into electric signals. The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards and perhaps help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs. Initial uses would be helping people with paralyzing diseases communicate even after they have lost all control of their muscles. A key advantage here is that sensors don't have to physically enter the brain. • A researcher at the Bio-design Institute at Arizona State University has used molecular biology tricks to create synthetic proteins with improved stability and functions in comparison with the ones that occurred naturally. John Chaput, the lead researcher, claims to have evolved several new proteins in a fraction of the three billion years it took nature. The new findings have led to some surprisingly new lessons on how to optimize proteins that have never existed in nature before, in a process they call ‘synthetic evolution.’ . Chaput said that the test tube derived protein was not only stable, but could bind its target molecule ATP twice as tight as naturally evolved ones. The researchers say that they now have a technology potential with which they can improve the stability and function of any of the nature’s proteins. The study has been published in the journal PLoS ONE.(ANI) • Prof. Mordechai “Moti” Liscovitch and graduate student Oran Erster of the Weizmann Institute’s Biological Regulation Department, together with Dr. Miri Eisenstein of Chemical Research Support, have recently developed a unique “switch” that can control the activity of any protein, raising it several-fold or stopping it almost completely. The method provides researchers with a simple and effective tool for exploring the function of unknown proteins, and in the future the new technique may find many additional uses. The switch has a genetic component and a chemical component: Using genetic engineering, the scientists insert a short segment of amino acids into the amino acid sequence making N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 6

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum up the protein. This segment is capable of binding strongly and selectively to a particular chemical drug, which affects the activity level of the engineered protein by increasing or reducing it. When the drug is no longer applied, or when it is removed from the system, the protein returns to its natural activity level. The method could be used one day in gene therapy. It may be possible to replace damaged proteins that cause severe diseases with genetically engineered proteins, and to control these proteins’ activity levels in a precise manner by giving appropriate doses of the drug. Another potential future application is in agricultural genetic engineering. The method might make it possible, for example, to create genetically engineered plants in which the precise timing of fruit ripening would be controlled using a substance that increases the activity of proteins responsible for ripening.( ebiologynews.com/2186.html).

Computer Sciences IBM creates world's most powerful computer: The first supercomputer capable of crunching through a thousand trillion mathematical operations every second has been announced by IBM. This is roughly equivalent to the combined processing power of a 2.4-kilometre-high pile of laptop computers. Blue Gene/P will be capable of a peak performance of 3000 trillion calculations, or floating point operations, per second (3 petaflops). But its sustained performance is expected to level out at around 1 petaflop. Each processing chip inside the machines contains 4 unique processor cores. There are 32 of these processors in every circuit board, and 32 circuit boards in every rack. With a total of 216 racks, the full machine features 884,736 unique processor cores. The first Blue Gene/P machine will be installed at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, US, later in 2007. It will be used primarily to perform nuclear weapons simulations at that laboratory. Other systems will then be installed in Germany, the UK and elsewhere in the US.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: Organic Chemistry • Total synthesis of complex Natural Product without using protecting group : Use of protecting group is almost an unavoidable part in complex natural product synthesis. In a landmark achievement in the history of organic synthesis Baran and coworkers synthesised four complex cyanobacterial alkaloids without using any protecting group. Although some protecting group free total syntheses have been performed over the last century, the present synthesis displays much more complex molecular architectures. In this elegant approach the reactivity of isonitrile group has been utilised to establish the molecular skeleton. (Ref: Baran, P. S.; Maimore, T. J.; Richter, J. M. Nature 2007, 446, 404) • Radical Catalysis: In recent years the area of organocatalysts is becoming increasingly important. So far these processes have involved only charged intermediates. As a beginning of a new amino catalytic concept recently MacMillan et al described a general strategy for organocatalysts using radical intermediate. The researchers chose several reactions to demonstrate the generality of this concept, all resulted in C-C bond formation adjacent to a carbonyl group. (Ref: Beeson, T. D.; Mastracchio, A.; Hong, J.-B.; Ashton, K.; MacMillan, D. W. C. Science 2007 316, 582) • Regioseletive one-pot protection of carbohydrates: In chemical synthesis of oligosaccharides often problems are associated with regioselective protection of polyhydroxyls. In a new approach to solve this problem Hung et al developed a combinatorial and highly regioselective method that can be use to protect individual hydroxy group of a monosaccharide. This approach can be used to install an orthogonal protecting group pattern in a single reaction vessel. (Ref: Wang, C.-C.; Lee, J.-C.; Luo, S, -Y.; Kulkarni, S.S.; Haung, V.-W.; Lee, C.-C.; Chang, K.-L; Hung, S.-. Nature 2007, 446, 896). ( Compiled by Dr. Joshodeep Boruwa, University of Konstanz ) N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 7

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

NORTH EAST INDIANS MADE US PROUD 1. Prof. Dulal Borthakur is at Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering (MBBE) University of Hawaii – Manoa, USA. Basically from Assam, he did his BS from Assam Agricultural University, India(1975), MS from Punjab Agricultural University, India(1977) and PhD from University of East Anglia, England (1987). He received

Extracellular Matrix Biology, Institute of Biosciences and Technology, The Texas A&M University System Health Science Center; US. He got his Ph. D. degree in Biochemistry from NEHU in 1989. He was the first one to be awarded a PhD degree from the Department of Biochemistry. His research interest involves investigation of genes and proteins unique to repair blood vessels, tissue, and blood brain barriers (BBB), in order to develop new therapeutic approaches for traumatic brain injury. 3. Dr. Lallukhum Fimate, Director of the

Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal. since 2003. Dr. Lallukhum Fimate was born on 1st March 1950, in Parbung Village of Manipur, India.

Prof. Dulal Borthakur several international awards which include 'North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture Teaching award of Merit' (2004), CTAHR (College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa) Excellence in Teaching' Award (2004). He was member of the Editorial Board, Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2001-2006); assistant Editor, World Journal of Microbiology & Biotechnology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands (1999-2004). 2. Dr. Kishore K.Wary has been working as a assistant professor in the University of Illinois at Chicago Dept. of Pharmacology, Illinois, United States. He also worked as assistant Professor, at Center for

Dr. Kishore K.Wary

Prof. Lallukhum Fimate

Despite having his education in the most deplorable of circumstances, he rose to the position of the Head of Department of Forensic Medicine in a leading Medical College of India, and is now rated as one of the finest forensic scientists of the world. Dr. Fimate was also President of the Indian Academy of Forensic Medicine. Dr Fimate is one of the country’s most outstanding medical doctors and has appeared in the IndoArab Who’s Who of Man of Achievement and Asia’s Who’s Who of Man of Achievement. He is also the editor of the Practical Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (Guidelines for Forensic Medicine and Toxicology work in India by IAFM) published by the Indian Academy of Forensic Medicine and has authored a book in Hmar titled “Thihna Rapthlak”.

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum 4. Dr. Gunadhar S Okram is working as scientist in the Low Temperature Laboratory of UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Indore, Madhya Pradesh India. Originally from Manipur, he received his Ph.D. degree in Physics from IIT, Mumbai.

Dr. Gunadhor Singh Okram His area of research is condensed matter experimental, low temperature physics, material science thermoelectricity, functional materials including conducting, semiconductor and insulating nano materials/polymers.

----------------------0------------------------ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction - Imagination is more important than knowledge

by Albert Einstein ----------------------0------------------------

EVENTS AND NEWS FROM NORTH EAST INDIA • N.E. Indian scientists have patented two new tea-based products -- a pill and a fizzy drink they hope will give consumers the same pleasure as drinking a freshly brewed cuppa. A four member team based in the Tocklai Experimental Station, Jorhat has developed pills of tea. This pill is absolutely safe and can be chewed or placed under the tongue, besides drinking in the conventional manner by dipping the tablet in a cup of hot water. The tea tablets will be able to freshen and cheer up a person with nearly the same feeling as having a hot cup of brewed tea. The drink "Tea cola´´, will come in two varieties -- green and black. The drink is made from pure natural tea extracts having a lot of medicinal properties in them. The "Tea cola," meanwhile, will come in two varieties -- green and black. The products were developed two years ago. With the patents rights granted, the scientists are hoping to launch the products on the world market soon. Firms from Britain, Australia and Iran have approached the Tocklai Station about selling the products, one of the leading scientists Dr. Mridul Hazarika said(www.sciencenewsdaily.org) • Dhekia contains high protein levels: study: Dhekia (Diplazium esculantum), the fern that is used as a leafy vegetable by the people of the Northeast, contains high amount of protein at a ratio much higher than any meat protein consumed by the people. Research work conducted by Prof AK Handique and his team at the laboratory of Gauhati University (GU) Biotechnology Department has revealed that the tender dhekia leaves has 33.27 per cent protein. This makes it the second highest protein-containing food plant, next only to soyabeen, which has 43.2 per cent protein, says Prof Handique, a former Head of that Department. This reflects the superiority of dhekia for nutritional

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum purposes. Moreover, being low in digestible carbohydrate, it may be ideal for diabetic patients, adds Prof Handique. • Biotech park to be set up in Guwahati : Government of Assam is planning to establish first Biotechnology park in Guwahati. The new Biotech Park to come up near the Indian Institute of Technology in North Guwahati will have medicinal plants, herbal medicines, plant genetics, micro propagation, traditional medicines, agro-technology, petroleum biotechnology, bio-fuels, genomics and information technology based on drug discovery. It will also have incubation centres to encourage entrepreneurship development in various areas like crop sciences, food processing, horticulture, floriculture, sericulture and animal husbandry. (Assam Tribune 19th April). • NE forum mooted for developing medicinal plants : Health experts, scientists and researchers of eight Northeastern States are chalking out an action plan to formulate a common platform for all medicinal and aromatic plant growers, traders, and researchers in the region. The action plan was tabled at the end of the two day National workshop on (Manipur on April 12) conservation and commercialization of medicinal & aromatic plants in the North East India The North East region lying in the IndoBurma bio-diversity hotspots ranks eighth amongst the 34 biodiversity hotspots of the world. The basic motive of establishing the boards is to institute an agency to streamline the medicinal plants sector, to achieve high quality commercial productions, value added products, drawing up of policies, strategies for conservation, proper harvesting through financial assistance as medicinal plants are not only a resource of affordable health care, medicinal items but also a source of income. (Assam Tribune, 19th April)

• Gauhati University recognition to NEDFi centre at Khetri: The research scholars who want to do their academic research on medicinal and aromatic plants (MAP) can now opt for the NEDFi Research and Development Centre, Khetri. Gauhati University has recognized the centre for PhD level research on the topic on which the centre’s scientists can provide their expertise. Conducting research on the medicinal and aromatic plants along with the plants for producing bio-diesel like jatropha and pongania, this centre works towards commercializsing these valuable plants and providing technical assistance to the entrepreneurs of the North East region. The centre was established in July 2001, got recognition from the Gauhati University for its good lab facilities, library facilities and field work capacity. To help the scholars in their studies, it has state of the art quality control laboratory and a well-stocked library and it also maintains a Herbal Garden with as many as 80 indigenous plant species and other herbs, the sources added. (Assam Tribune April 13) • RSC exhibition on nanotechnology in July 3rd week: To acquaint the people of the region about the concept of nanotechnology, the Regional Science Centre here is organizing an exhibition on this technologies. The exhibition will be the first of its kind in the North East will be held in the third week of July will highlight the application of nanotechnology in every day life. The exhibition is an attempt to create awareness about the latest technology. The exhibition with its models like, ‘Amazing visuals’, ‘journey into a nano world’, ‘why do properties change at the nano level,’ properties at nano level’, ‘nanotechnology in sports’, ‘medical applications’, ‘nanotextiles’ etc will explore some of the impacts of nano-technology on society. The exhibition will also highlight the Indian research institutes which are conducting research on nanotechnology. (Assam Tribune 11th July 2007) N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 10

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

NORTH EAST INDIA RESEARCH FORUM MEMBERS IN NEWS, AWARDS / FELLOWSHIP RECEIVED BY MEMBERS 1. Dr. Diganta Sharma joins for his post doctoral research the research group of Prof. Yoshiaki Kiso, in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Kyoto Pharmaceutical University, Kyoto, Japan. Currently, he is working on “Synthesis and structure activity relationship study of peptidomimetic coronavirus protease inhibitors.”. He did his Ph.D. in the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India. 2. Dr. Manash Ranjan Das joins Institute d'Electronique de Microélctronique et de Nanotechnologie (IEMN) Biointerface Group-Interdisciplinary Research Institute at Universite des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, France for his post doctoral research on 21st of May 2007. He did his doctoral research in Regional Research Laboratory, Jorhat, India. 3. Dr. Sasanka deka joins National Nanotechnology Laboratory of INFM DistrettoTecnologico–ISUFI,Lecce, Italy for his post doctoral research in the month of April. He carried out his Ph.D. research in the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ATTENDED BY MEMBERS OF THE FORUM 1. Dr. Diganta Sharma attended 7th Tetrahedron Symposium, Challenges in Organic Chemistry, (Organizer: Elsevier) at Kyoto Research Park, Kyoto, Japan during 25-26th May, 2006. 2. Mr. Khirud gogoi attended a symposium organised by Biochemical Society on "Cell Penetrating Peptides Meeting" held at University Of Wolverhampton, Telford, United Kingdom on 9th-11th May 2007. He Presented a paper entitled "Synthesis Of

Cell Penetrating Peptide-Pna Conjugates By Chemoselective Click Chemistry". 3. Dr. Arindam Adhikari presented two papers entitled ‘’AFM mapping of conducting polymers in anticorrosion coatings’’ and ‘’ Effect of surface roughness of conducting polypyrrole thin film electrodes on electro-catalytic oxidation of methanol’’ at 13th Intenational Conference on Surface Science(ICSS-13), International Conference on Nanoscience and Technology (ICN+T 2007), 17th International Vacuum Congress(IVC17) in Stockholm held during 2-6 July 2007.

VISIT BY MEMBERS 1. Mr. Pankaj Bharali visited Ruhr University of Bochum (RUB), Germany under a bilateral collaborative project funded by jointly by DST, India and DAAD, Germany during February to April 2006. He was in the industrial chemistry department. http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/. During his visit to RUB, he had the opportunity to visit HASYLAB (Hamburg Synchrotron Laboratory) under DESY (Deutsche Synchrotron Labor) in Hamburg. In HASYLAB synchrotron radiations are produced by accelerators and used for techniques where synchrotron radiation is useful, such as, XRD, XRF, EXAFS, XPS, ..etc.(http://www-hasylab.desy.de/ ) 2. Mr. Pranjal Saikia visited Germany in accordance with a ongoing DST-DAAD sponsored two-year project titled "Design and characterization of novel nanosized metal oxide catalysts" to carry out some experiments on CO oxidation reaction, temperature programmed study, EXAFS measurements and surface analysis by XPSISS. He visited Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, Germany for three months (from 1st November 2006 to 31st January 2007). There he worked under two very renowned Professors of Technichie Chemie (Industrial

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 11

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum Chemistry) Department, Prof. Martin Muhler and Prof. Wolfgang Grünert. His line of work was: Design and Characterization of Novel Nanosized Metal Oxide Catalysts for Catalytic Applications. He also had the opportunity to visit DESY LAB, Hamburg to perform EXAFS measurements with Synchrotron-based radiation. 3. Dr. Ashim Thakur is visiting at Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, The State University of New Jersey, Rutgers, New Jersey, as a short term post doctoral research associate (May to July, 3 months). He is working in the area of nano cage container molecules. 4. Dr. Pordeep Phukan, reader at the Chemistry Department of Gauhati University is visiting University of Tuebingen, Germany starting 1st of July 2007 for three months. His area of research is catalysis.

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INSTRUMENT OF THE ISSUE QCM (Quartz Crystal Microbalance) The Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) is an extremely sensitive mass sensor, capable of measuring mass changes in the nanogram range. It measures mass by measuring the change in frequency of a piezoelectric quartz crystal when it is disturbed by the addition of a small mass such as a virus or any other tiny object intended to be measured. It can work under vacuum or liquid environment thus making it useful to determine the properties of polymers and adhesion of proteins. It is a very helpful method to sense adsorption processes at solid/gas or solid/liquid interfaces. Frequency measurements are easily made to high precision, hence, it is easy to measure small masses. Correlation between mass and frequency is achieved by means of the Sauerbrey equation. In addition to measuring the frequency, the dissipation is often measured to help analysis. The dissipation is a dimensionless quantity inversely related to the resonance frequency and decay time constant.

-India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, grandmother of legend, and great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only. - by Mark Twain (American Author 1835-1910)

Image of a typical QCM-D -------------------0----------------------

A very common use of quartz crystal microbalances is as a thickness monitor in thin film technology, mostly under vacuum. There the QCM sensor head is placed near to the sample and deposited as well. The ratio of the amount of deposition on the sample to that on the sensor is called

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum the 'tooling factor'. One way to determine the tooling factor is to move the sensor head between the sample position and the measurement position; the ratio between the deposition rates in the two positions gives the estimated tooling factor. Another way is to use a laboratory technique such as scratch tests or white light interference to measure the actual thickness deposited on the sample after the deposition is over; the ratio of this thickness to what the sensor measured is the estimated tooling factor. A QCM consists of a thin quartz disc sandwiched between a pair of electrodes. Due to the piezoelectric properties of quartz, it is possible to excite the crystal to oscillation by applying an AC voltage across its electrodes. The resonance frequency (f) of the crystal depends on the total oscillating mass, including water coupled to the oscillation. When a thin film is attached to the sensor crystal, the frequency decreases. If the film is thin and rigid the decrease in frequency is proportional to the mass of the film. In this way, the QCM operates as a very sensitive balance. The mass of the adhering layer is calculated by using the Sauerbrey relation:

C = 17.7 ng Hz-1 cm-2 for a 5 MHz quartz crystal. n = 1,3,5,7 is the overtone number. It is also possible to get an estimation of the thickness (d) of the adhering layer:

where ρeff is the effective density of the adhering layer. In most situations the adsorbed film is not rigid and the Sauerbrey relation

becomes invalid. A film that is "soft" (viscoelastic) will not fully couple to the oscillation of the crystal, hence the Sauerbrey relation will underestimate the mass at the surface. A soft film dampens the crystal's oscillation. The damping or, dissipation (D), of the crystal's oscillation reveals the the film's softness (viscoelasticity). D is defined as

where Elost is the energy lost (dissipated) during one oscillation cycle and Estored is the total energy stored in the oscillator. The dissipation of the crystal is measured by recording the response of a freely oscillating crystal that has been vibrated at its resonance frequency. This also gives the opportunity to jump between the fundamental frequency and overtones (e.g. 15, 25 and 35 MHz). By measuring at multiple frequencies and applying a viscoelastic model (the so called Voight model) the adhering film can be characterized in detail; viscosity, elasticity and correct thickness may be extracted even for soft films when certain assumptions are made. The Electrochemical QCM can be applied for analytical as well as mechanistic and kinetic studies of electrochemical processes accompanied by mass transfer across the electrode-electrolyte solution interface or visco-elasticity changes allowing thus investigation of membranes, batteries, corrosion resistance investigation, electrochemical deposition, underpotential deposition, electroplating, adsorption of different substances and adsorption of biomolecules in particular, electrosorption, electropolymerization, layered nanostructures, self-assembled monolayers, drug delivery, ion exchange, ion dynamics in conducting solids, chemical sensor and biosensor development, sol-gel transformations within surface films, etc. N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 13

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

ARTICLES SECTION Ceria Based Mixed Oxides: Emerging Materials for Auto Exhaust Catalyst Formulation

Mr. Pranjal Saikia Cerium (rare earth) is the most abundant member of lanthanide series. The easily accessible tetravalent ceric ion (Ce4+) is unique among the lanthanide elements. Though known as rare earth, it is rated as the 25th most abundant element in the earth crust among all the periodic elements. The naturally occurring element cerium is made up of the isotopes 136Ce; 138Ce; 140Ce and 142 Ce. A radioactive alpha emitter 142Ce has a half-life of 5 X 1015 years. Ceria (CeO2) is an interesting oxide with unique properties namely its ability to shift easily between reduced and oxidized states and to accommodate variable levels of bulk and surface oxygen vacancies. These characteristics make it suitable for use as a support as well as a catalyst in processes wherein reaction conditions fluctuate between oxidizing and reducing environments. Ceria crystallizes in a cubic fluorite (space group Fm3m) crystal structure in its most stable phase having each metal cation surrounded by eight oxygen atoms (Fig. 1). CeO2 is widely used in the formulations of the so-called three-way catalysts (TWCs) used for the simultaneous removal of CO, NO and hydrocarbons from automotive exhaust engines. Other significant applications of cerium oxide based materials include use in oxygen permeation membrane systems, fuel cell processes, catalytic wet oxidation, exhaust combustion catalysts and deNOX catalysis. The driving forces that make CeO2 promising for these

Fig.1. Crystal structure of ceria applications are: a) elevated oxygen transport capacity by forming labile oxygen vacancies and b) the redox couple Ce3+/Ce4+ with the ability of ceria to shift between CeO2 and Ce2O3. Despite the wider spread applications, pure ceria is poorly thermostable and undergoes rapid sintering under high temperature conditions, which leads to deactivation of catalysts. Therefore several attempts to overcome the problem were made and are still a matter of interest. One such approach is the substitution of another metal or metal oxide into the ceria lattice, thereby facilitating the formation of mixed oxides. The mixed metal oxides play a very important role in many areas of chemistry, physics, material science and geochemistry. Due to several reasons, the chemical behavior of mixed metal oxides also differs from single metal oxides. The combination of two metals in an oxide can lead to novel structural and electronic properties of the final oxide, consequently favouring its catalytic activity and selectivity. In some cases, cations in a mixed metal oxide can also cooperatively catalyze different steps of a chemical process. At a structural level, a dopant facilitates defect formation within the oxide host by generating stress into the lattice. As a result, metal-metal or metaloxygen-metal interactions in mixed metal oxides lead to perturbed electronic states compared to single metal oxides. Till date,

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum ceria-zirconia mixed oxide system has gained highest exploitation. Interesting study with other dopants like hafnia, terbia, titania, gadolinia, praseodymia etc. can be found in literature. Supported ceria-based mixed metal oxides are even more interesting as they bear very high surface area. The most widely used support materials are silica, alumina and titania. Due to enhanced reactivity, mainly ceria based noble metal catalysts were finding uses in various catalytic applications. But regarding lower cost and thereby possibility for higher catalytic load, transition metal based ceria catalysts are also being investigated now a days. Particle size, phase modification, structural defects and chemical nonstoichiometry influence the redox and catalytic properties of ceria and its composite oxides. Particle size reduction accompanies increment of surface area, which provides a large number of more reactive edge sites. If particle size is reduced below 100 nm, the material becomes nano phasic. In this situation, the densities of defects increase. These defects may be grain boundaries, interphase boundaries, dislocation etc. This increase in defect density is responsible for enhancement of active sites, which in turn provides fast kinetics of catalytic activity. As a result interest to make nanosized materials other than conventional ones is going on increasingly day by day. The excellent oxygen storage capacity (OSC) is an inherent property of ceria in the cubic fluorite structure. The addition of ZrO2 further improves the OSC. It is to be noted that though the term OSC simply reflects oxygen storage capacity, actually it is meant for oxygen storage and release capacities at a time. As cited above, ceriazirconia mixed oxides are used for oxygen storage/release in three-way catalysts for automotive exhaust treatment. These devices make use of the ability of ceria to release oxygen by forming oxygen vacancies under reducing conditions and, conversely, to store oxygen by filling oxygen vacancies under oxidizing conditions. The oxygen release

and uptake phenomenon in ceria-zirconia system can be simply depicted as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Schematic presentation of the oxygen storage and release property of ceria zirconia mixed oxide It is good for us that India is among the top bearers of cerium. Looking at the success of ceria based materials and their ubiquitous presence in today’s TWC formulations, together with the absence of any serious competition to ceria as the OSC material of choice for automotive applications, the overall outlook is that ceria-containing materials will continue to be a major component of automotive exhaust catalysts. Special uses of oxygen storage materials will likely emerge in response to lower emissions standards and increased fuel economy requirements. Considering the worldwide interest towards the environmental issues, researchers from all over the world have been presenting interesting results with ceria based materials. New researchers from our region may also give attention in this regard. Short Bio data of the author: Pranjal Saikia was born in Na-ali Dhekiajuli, Jorhat, Assam. He graduated from Dibrugarh University (1999) and completed his Masters in Chemistry from Gauhati University (2002). A recipient of CSIR-NET research fellowship, he has been pursuing his doctoral research at I & P C Division, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Hyderabad under Dr. B.M. Reddy, Deputy Director, IICT. Before coming to N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 15

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum IICT, he worked in various research projects in Tea Research Association, Tocklai, Jorhat and Materials Science Division, RRL, Jorhat. He also served IIT, Guwahati as a TA for a very short period. Recently, he visited Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany for three months in connection with a DSTDAAD collaborative program. He has already published six papers in highly reputed international journals and three papers in the proceedings of international conferences. His research interest is synthesis and characterization of novel nano-sized multicomponent mixed metal oxides for catalytic applications. Email: [email protected] [email protected] ----------------------0-----------------------Indian thought is an extraordinary mass of material which for detail and variety has hardly any equal in any other part of the world. There is hardly any height of spiritual insight or rational philosophy attained in the world that has not its parallel in the vast stretch that lies between the early Vedic seers and the modern naiyAyikas.

By Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (September 5, 1888 – April 17, 1975), was a philosopher and statesman. The first Vice President of India (19521962) and the second President of India (1962-1967). His birthday is celebrated in India as Teacher's Day in his honour.

COAL: The most abundant natural fuel

Mr. Binoy Kumar Saikia Energy is vital to human development. Coal is one of the world’s most important sources of energy, fueling almost 40 % of electricity worldwide. In many countries this figure is much higher. Poland relies on coal for over 94 % of its electricity; South Africa for 92 %, China for 77 % and Australia for 76 %. Coal has played this important role for countries not only providing electricity, but also an essential fuel for steel and cement production, and other industries activities. Coal is located worldwide. It can be found on every continent in over 70 countries, with the biggest reservoir in the USA, Russia, China and India. Coal reserves in India are plentiful but of low quality. India has 10 % of the world’s coal, at over 92 % billion tones. At current rates of production, India has enough coal for the next 217 years. Most of the Indian coal are high ash bituminous coal and located in Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam. Jharkhand has the highest reserve of 35.4 billion tones in India. The bulk of coal production in the organized sector in Assam comes from Makum coalfields, Margherita, Assam. Out of 259.37 million tonnes of proved coal reserves of Assam, Makum coalfields alone have 249.65 million tonnes of proved reserves. The Assam Railways and Trading Company have first started the coal mining activities in the Makum coalfields. The first colliery started was Ledo Colliery in 1882. The other collieries are Baragolai, Tipong, Jeypore, Tikak and Tirap, where mining has been carried out. This coalfield is the most important in the Northeastern India from the standpoint of resources of coal and infrastructure

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum facilities, which accounts for majority production of coal due to well-developed mines. The World Coal Institute in conjunction with the International Energy Agency (IEA) hosted an international workshop in New Delhi on 16-17 May 2006 on the theme “Coal for Sustainable Energy”. The aim of the workshop was to open a dialogue between industry and government, and between experts from developed and developing countries on the role of coal in clean and climate change. In several key messages released from the workshop, the major one was that coal industry is the main driver of social and economic development and plays key role in conforming the great challenges of the 21st century-global poverty, energy security and sustainable development. The International Energy Agency (IEA) states that coal will remain the dominant fuel in India’s energy scenario through to 2030. The power sector will be the main driver of India’s coal consumptioncurrently around 68 % of India’s electricity is generated from coal. India is the sixth largest electricity generating country in the world. IEA projects that biomass and waste, the main fuel in the primary energy mix in 2002 will increasingly be displaced by coal. India has a large number of existing coalfired power generating plants mostly constructed by Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited and National Thermal Power Corporation. In April 2006, India became the first country to join USA on the government steering committee for the Future Gen Project. It is an initiative to build and operate the world’s first coal-based power plant that removes and stores CO2 while producing electricity. Thus, the importance of coal in our future years is remarkable. Some of the important uses of this natural resource are listed below for the readers: Coal is essential for iron and steel production. Some 64 % of steel production worldwide comes from iron made in blast furnaces, which use coal.

Coal liquefaction, where coal can act as a substitute for crude oil. There are two methods of liquefaction: direct coal liquefaction-where coal is converted to liquid fuel in a single process and indirect coal liquefaction-where coal is first gasified and then converted to liquid. Coal is used as an energy source in cement production. Large amount of energy are required to produce cement. Klins usually burn coal in the form of powder and consume around 450 g of coal for about 900 g of cement produced. Coal is likely to remain an important input for the global cement industry for many years to come. Other uses of coal include alimuna refineries, paper manufactures, and some chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Several chemical products can be produced from the by-products of coal. Refined coal tar is used in the manufacture of chemical such as creosote oil, naphthalene, phenol and benzene. Ammonia gas recovered from coke ovens is used to manufacture ammonia salts, nitric acid and agricultural fertilizers. Thousand of different products have coal or coal by products as components: soap, aspirins, solvents, dye, plastics and fibers such as rayon and nylon. Coal is also an essential ingredient in the production of specialist products viz. activated carbon, carbon fiber, silicon metal. While coal makes an important contribution to economic and social development worldwide, its environment impacts have been a challenge. Coal mining raises a number of environmental challenges viz. land disturbances, mine subsidence, water pollution (acid mine drainage), dust & noise pollution. Technologies have to be developed and deployed to minimize these disturbances. Clean Coal Technologies (CCT) are a range of technologies options, which improve the environmental performance of coal. Some of the technologies are: Rehabilitation of land, Trapping of Coal Bed Methane (CBM), Coal cleaning, Electrostatic Precipitation & Fabric Filters (ESPF), Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD), Fluidized Bed Combustion (FBC) to reduce NOx & SOx N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 17

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum emissions, Carbon capture & Storage (CCS) etc. In CCS, the CO2 is injected into earth’s subsurface. These technologies reduce emissions, reduce waste and increase the amount of energy gained from tonne of coal. Research and development is focusing on increasingly innovative ways of generating energy. One important option for the longer term is the move towards hydrogen-based energy systems, in which hydrogen is used to produce electricity from fuel cells. Fuel cells use electrochemical reactions between hydrogen and oxygen instead of combustion process to produce electricity. Hydrogen does not occur naturally in usable quantities. Coal is prime candidate to provide hydrogen via coal gasification. Europe, Japan, USA and New Zealand are considering coal as an option to produce hydrogen. Alleviating poverty, maintaining secure supplies of energy and protecting the natural environment are some of the biggest challenges facing our world today. The production of coal is linked to each of these challenges. Reference: World Coal Institute News Letters Short biodata of the author: Mr Binoy K Saikia passed M Sc in Inorganic Chemistry from Cotton College (Gauhati University) in 2000. He then joined in North East Institute of Sciences & Technology, Jorhat-785006, India on January 2002 as a Project Assistant and completed his research work on X-ray diffraction and spectroscopic investigation of Assam coal. Presently he is engaged as a Technical staff in the Department of Chemical Sciences, Tezpur University, Tezpur-784028, India from March 2005. His areas of research interest are X-ray diffraction, FT-IR spectroscopy, coal chemistry, acid mine drainage, water & soil pollution. ------------------------0------------------------------

Ionic Liquids: An Invitation to Innovate

Dr. Diganta Sarma Introduction Chemistry is dominated by the study of species in solution. Although any liquid may be used as a solvent, relatively few are in general use. However, as the introduction of cleaner technologies has become a major concern throughout both industry and academia, the search for alternatives to the most damaging solvents has become a high priority. Solvents are high on the list of damaging chemicals for two simple reasons: (i) they are used in huge amounts and (ii) they are usually volatile liquids that are difficult to contain. Today’s environmental concerns demand clean reaction processes that do not use harmful organic solvents and minimize chemical waste. In view of environmental pollution caused by the use of volatile organic solvents, there is a greater need to replace them by environmentally benign solvents. In this regard, ionic liquids have emerged as important substitutes for several organic reactions. What are Ionic Liquids ? Ionic liquids are salts composed wholly of ions (organic cation and organic or inorganic anion). The ions are poorly coordinated, which results in these solvents being liquid below 100°C, or even at room temperature which are known as room temperature ionic liquids. At least one ion has a delocalized charge and one component is organic, which prevents the formation of a stable crystal lattice. Examples of some common cations and anions that are used to synthesize ionic liquids are listed in Fig. 1. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 in the United States established a national policy to prevent or reduce

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum pollution at its source whenever feasible. The Pollution Prevention Act also provided an opportunity to expand beyond traditional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) programs and devise creative strategies to protect human health and the environment. Green chemistry is the use of chemistry for pollution prevention. More specifically, green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Green chemistry is a highly effective approach to pollution prevention because it applies innovative scientific solutions to real-world environmental situations. The 12 principles of green chemistry, originally published by Paul Anastas and John Warner provide a road map for chemists to implement green chemistry. Promoting this new approach to pollution prevention through the environmentally conscious design of chemical products and processes is the focus of EPA's Green Chemistry Program, an initiative under the EPA's Design for the Environment Program. The principles cover such concepts as:

The design of processes to maximise the amount of raw material that ends up in the product. The use of safe, environmentally benign solvents where possible.

The design of energy efficient processes. The best form of waste disposal, aiming not to create it in the first place. Are they Green Solvents ? Many ionic liquids have been developed for specific synthetic problems. For this reason, ionic liquids have been termed “designer solvents”. Ionic liquids are considered green solvents in substituting many volatile organic solvents as they possess some special properties like: (1) They are relatively nonvolatile and hence do not produce atmospheric volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and can be used in low-pressure (vacuum) environments. (2) They are nonflammable. (3) They possess good solvating power for a wide variety of organic and inorganic compounds. (4) They can be considered both as a polar and a non-coordinating solvent. (5) They are the most complex and versatile of solvents in that they have the ability to interact via hydrogen bonding, π– π, n–π, dispersive, dipolar, electrostatic, and hydrophobic interactions. (6) They can be immiscible with nonpolar organic solvents and/or water. (7) They have physicochemical properties that can be altered / controlled by judicious selection of the cation and / or anion. (8) Since ionic liquids can be synthesized by metathesis reaction, a range of task specific ionic liquids can be synthesized. (9) Most importantly they can be recycled for a number of times without loss of activity. Synthesis There are two basic methods for the preparation of ionic liquids: metathesis of a halide salt with, for instance, a silver, group 1 metal or ammonium salt of the desired anion and acid-base neutralization reactions.

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CH3

CH3 N

N

C4H9Br

Br

N

NaBF4

BF4

N

N

N

CH3

C4H9

C4H9

Applications Ionic liquids enjoy a plethora of applications in various domains of physical and chemical sciences. For example, they are used as “solvents” for organic, organometallic syntheses and catalysis, as electrolytes in electrochemistry, in fuel and solar cells, as lubricants, as a stationary phase for chromatography, as matrices for mass spectrometry, supports for the immobilization of enzymes, in separation technologies, as liquid crystals, templates for the synthesis of mesoporous, nanomaterials and ordered films, materials for embalming and tissue preservation, etc. Physicochemical properties Ionic liquids possess a unique array of physico-chemical properties that make them suitable in numerous task-specific applications in which conventional solvents are non-applicable or insufficiently effective. Such properties include: 1. Melting Point: The solid-liquid transition temperatures of ionic liquids can be below ambient and as low as 100°C. The structure of an ionic liquid has a direct impact upon its properties, in particular the melting point and liquidus ranges. The charge, size and distribution of charge on the respective ions are the main factors that influence the melting points of the salts. The dominant force in ionic liquids is Coulombic attraction between ions. The Coulombic attraction term is given by equation 1: Ec = Mz+z- / 4πεor

(1)

Where z+ and z- are the ion charges and r is the inter-ion separation.

The overall lattice energies of ionic solids thus depend on (i) the product of the net ion charges, (ii) ion-ion separation, and (iii) packing efficiency of the ions (reflected in the Madelung constant, M). Thus, lowmelting salts should be most preferred when the charges on the ions are ±1 and when the sizes of the ions are large, thus ensuring that the inter-ion separation (r) is also large. In addition, large ions permit charge delocalization, further reducing overall charge density. Melting points of organic salts have an important relationship to the symmetry of organic cations. Increasing symmetry in the ions increases melting points, by permitting more efficient ion-ion packing in the crystal cell. A change from spherical or highsymmetry ions such as Na+ or [NMe4]+ to lower-symmetry ions such as imidazolium cations distorts the Coulombic charge distribution. In addition, cations such as the imidazolium cations contain alkyl groups that do not participate in charge delocalization. 2. Viscosity: The viscosity of ionic liquids is normally higher than that of common molecular solvents. Ionic liquid viscosities at room temperature range from a low of around 10 cP to values in excess of 500 cP. There are several factors affecting ionic liquid viscosities such as temperature, ion sizes, impurities etc. a) Effect of temperature- Viscosities of ionic liquids decrease with the increase in temperature. For example, the viscosity of 1butyl-3-methyl imidazolium hexafluorophosphate [BMIM][PF6] decreases by about 27 % as the temperature changes from 293 K to 298 K. (b) Effect of impurities- Small amount of impurities can have a large effect on the viscosities of ionic liquids. A recent study indicates that the chloride impurities in the ionic liquids increase the viscosity, while the presence of water or other cosolvents decreases the viscosity. The increase of viscosity with increasing concentration of chloride in [BMIM][BF4] is related to an increase in the cohesive forces

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum via hydrogen bonding between the chloride and the protons of the imidazolium ring. (c) Effect of ion sizes- Within a series of non-haloaluminate ionic liquids containing the same cation, a change in the anion clearly affects the viscosity. The general order of increasing viscosity with respect to the anion is: [(CF3SO2)2N]- < [BF4]- < [CF3CO2]- < [CF3SO3]- < [(C2H5SO2) 2N]- < [C3F7CO2]- < [CH3CO2]< [CH3SO3]- < [C4F9SO3]-. Obviously, this trend does not exactly correlate with anion size. This may be due to some other properties such as their ability to form weak hydrogen bonds with the cation. The viscosities of ionic liquids are also affected by the identity of the organic cation. For ionic liquids with the same anion, the trend is that larger alkyl substituents on the imidazolium cation give rise to more viscous fluids. 3. Conductivity: Since ionic liquids are composed entirely of ions, they are expected to possess very high conductivities. Conductivity of ionic liquids is mostly of the order of 10-1 Sm-1 at ambient temperatures, less conductive than concentrated aqueous electrolytes. The explanation for this observation was based on the reduction of available charge carriers due to ion pairing and/or ion aggregation and to the reduced ion mobility due to the large ion size. Parameters such as viscosity and density of liquid, ion size and degree of dissociation affect the conductivity. So it is rather difficult to estimate the contribution of each parameter to the conductivity of an ionic liquid. However, proportionality between the conductivity and inverse of the viscosity has been observed for several liquids in a wide temperature range. 4. Polarity: Different combinations of anions and cations produce solvents with different polarities. No ionic liquids have shown themselves to be “super-polar”; regardless of the method used to assess their polarities, ionic liquids come within the range of molecular solvents. Most general measures of overall polarity place ionic

liquids in the range of the short- to mediumchain alcohols. Since measurement of dielectric constant requires a non-conducting medium, it is not possible in the case of ionic liquids. Therefore, the polarity scales for ionic liquids have been suggested by using various methods such as absorption spectra, fluorescence spectra, refractive index, organic reactions as probe etc. Conclusion The chemistry of room-temperature ionic liquids is at an incredibly exciting stage in its development. No longer mere curiosities, ionic liquids are beginning to be used as solvents for a wide range of synthetic procedures. The advent of systems that are easy to handle will allow those without specialist knowledge of the field to use them for the first time. From the over increasing popularity of ionic liquids it seems that one day will come when ionic liquids totally replace the conventional volatile organic solvents, and I hope the day is not so far.

Short biodata of the author: Dr. Diganta Sarma was born (September, 1978) and brought up in a small village Naharani of Golaghat District, Assam. After completing his M.Sc. degree (2000) from the Department of Chemistry, Gauhati University, he went to Tezpur University to work in a MNES sponsored project for one year, then he moved over to RRL Jorhat to work in a DBT sponsored project in the Natural Product Chemistry Division where he worked for almost eight months. He then came to National Chemical Laboratory, Pune to pursue his Ph.D. degree. During this period he attended one international symposium (7th Tetrahedron Symposium, Challenges in Organic Chemistry, Organizer: Elsevier) at Kyoto Research Park, Kyoto, Japan during 25-26th May, 2006. After submitting his Ph.D. thesis to Pune N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 21

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University (February, 2007), he immediately joined the research group of Prof. Yoshiaki Kiso, in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Kyoto Pharmaceutical University, Kyoto, Japan. Currently, he is working on “Synthesis and structure activity relationship study of peptidomimetic coronavirus protease inhibitors.” E-mail: [email protected]

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- All power is within you. You can do anything and everything. Believe in that. Do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. Stand up and express the divinity within you. - Do not look back upon what has been done. Go ahead! - Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear. -Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with the tenderness of a flower. By Swami Vivekananda (1863- 1902)

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Crystal Polymorphism

Mr. Bipul Sarma Background, Definition and Importance: Crystal polymorphism is one manifestation of structural diversity which is in every aspect of nature. A crystal is a solid in which the constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are packed in a regularly ordered, repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. The word crystal originates from the Greek word “Krystallos” meaning clear ice. ‘Polymorphism’ word originally comes from Greek literature (poly = many, morph = form). Mitscherlich (1822) first documented the polymorphism in context of crystallography. He noticed number of compound (e.g. arsenate and phosphate) can exist in different crystal structure. Ostwald worked on the relative stability of different crystal structure of same compound. Buerger and McCrone worked on the fundamental property change like melting point, solubility with different crystal form for same chemical substance made the subject the polymorphism a major up lift. Chronology in historical development of polymorphism is as follows: 1822 Mitscherlich identified different crystal structure for arsenate and phosphate. 1844 Amici discovered polarizing microscope for visual characterization of solids. 1876 Millard considered geometrical and structural basis in growing different form of same substances. 1891 Lahman observed phase transformation in crystal form.

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum 1897 1906-19

1926

1937

1956-69 1973

1989

1998

2002

Ostwald famous ‘Rule of Steps’ on relative stability of polymorph. Summarization of organic crystal polymorphism in Groth’s five volume collection. Tamman’s work on thermodynamic stability and relationship of different polymorphic modification Bloom and Buerger pointed out about the fundamental property change and its importance for polymorph. McCrone work on pharmaceutical importance for drug polymorphism. Corradini coined the term conformational polymorphism. Polymorphism arises due to torsional degree of freedom of molecular conformers. Bavin pointed that metastable polymorph can used for tabletting and stable one for suspensions. Unexpected formation of stable and less soluble polymorph of Ritonavir (Norvir) in Abbott laboratory highlights the significance of polymorph screening for drug before marketting. ‘Polymorphism in molecular crystal’ by Bernstein provides valuable update on polymorphism and emerged as a growing subject.

“Allotrope” first introduced by Berzelius which describes the existence of different crystal structures for same element. Allotrope and polymorph are closely related. Polymorphism is used in general to refer the structural diversity of compound whereas allotropy is the structural diversity of element. Definition of polymorphism is not

clear and elusive in literature till today. McCrone defined polymorph as “a solid crystalline phase of a given compound resulting from the possibility of at least two crystalline arrangements of the molecules of that compound in the solid state”. Burger tried to simplify it as “if these (solids composed of only one component) can exist in different crystal lattices, then we speak of polymorphism”. In modern language crystal described as ‘supermolecule par excellence’ by Dunitz. In his view polymorphic modification are ‘superisomer’ and polymorphism is a kind of ‘superisomerism’1. Scheme 1 describes the understanding of polymorphism

Scheme 1 Polymorphism in organic solids is of fundamental importance as its ability to alter physical and chemical properties in different structures, such as melting point, density, compressibility, solubility, hardness, dipole moment and bioavailability. Polymorphism has received particular attention in the recent literature because of its importance in drug substances and pharmaceutical formulations. Molecular recognition, crystal nucleation, crystallization, and the phase relationship between solid can be inferred from study of polymorphism. These studies represent special opportunities to analyze structure– property relationships because the conformation, hydrogen bonding and lattice energy of the same molecule in different

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum crystalline environments may be compared in polymorphic structures. One of the challenges in crystal engineering is our ability to understand and control polymorphism. To avoid undesired form of a drug molecule we need to understand the origin of polymorphism and control of crystallization process. Patent associated with Ranitidine hydrochloride and formation of less soluble stable polymorph of Ritonavir during manufacturing highlighted the significance of polymorph selection and screening before marketing. Getting the right polymorph is not only important for in drugs and pharmaceuticals but also for speciality chemicals like explosives, dyes, pigments, flavors and confectionery products. For example, oxotitanium phthalocyanine exists in four polymorphic forms. Among the four forms, one form is used as photosensitive charge generation material and the other forms are inactive. Current approaches for discovery and selection of polymorphic forms include methods, such as varying solvent of crystallization, temperature, sublimation and melt crystallization2, extent of supersaturation, soluble additives, epitaxial growth, laser induced nucleation, crystallization in capillaries, confinement within porous materials, functionalized polymer heteronuclei cross nucleation, insitu flash cooling are also used recently to control over polymorphism and producing new polymorph. A wide range of crystallization conditions to generate new polymorph known as high-throughput crystallization which has become very popular in pharma industry. This approach enables to speed up pharmaceutical development and capture solid form diversity of pharmaceutical substances. Different group carried out database analyses to estimate the percentage of compounds that are polymorphic reported in Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). It was found that about 4-5% of organic compounds, 5.5% organometallics, and 2.1% of coordination compounds are shown to exhibit polymorphism 3.

Polymorphs are classified into categories, such as concomitant polymorphs, configurational polymorphs, conformational isomorphs, conformational polymorphs or tautomeric polymorphs based on structural similarity, visual inspection and occurance. Conformational and concomitant polymorphs are more common. When polymorphs crystallize simultaneously in the same flask under identical crystal growth conditions from the same solvent; they are termed as concomitant polymorphs. This phenomenon occurs when there are many metastable forms with almost similar energies that crystallize together. Conformational polymorphism can be defined as the existence of different conformers of the same molecule in different polymorphic modifications. Conformationally flexible molecules have greater scope for their polymorphic occurrence because of greater degree of freedom than rigid molecule. The existence of different conformers of the same molecule in the same crystal structure represents conformational isomorphism. Yu and co-workers showed that 5-Methyl-2-[(2nitrophenyl) amino]-3-thiophenacarbonitrile (ROY, Red, Orange, Yellow), has a record number of seven polymorphs. Crystallization process can be considered as two-steps viz. nucleation, or multiple selection processes on different length and timescales, and crystal growth, involving subsequent growth of nascent nuclei. Nucleation is the primary stage of crystallization. Crystal growth from those nuclei or crystallization starts after that. Various group studied on crystal growth aspect as it is in macroscopic scale. But there was very less study reported on the nucleation. Figure 1 shows the changes in free energy for thermodynamic (stable) and kinetic (usually metastable) crystals.

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--------------------0-------------------Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Figure 1

-Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

References: 1. J. Bernstein, Polymorphism in Molecular Crystals, Clarendon, Oxford, 2002. 2. B. Sarma, S. Roy, A. Nangia, Chem. Commun,. 2006, 4918. 3. Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), version 5.27, ConQuest 1.9, January 2007 update, www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk. Short Biodata of the author: Bipul Sarma (born in Nalbari district, Assam) received his bachelor degree in chemistry from B. Barooah College, Guwahati and did master degree from Cotton College (Gauhati University) in 2003. After qualifying CSIRJRF, he joined in a DST sponsored project under the supervision of Prof. J. B. Baruah in IIT-Guwahati. Then he moved to School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad and joined as a Ph. D. research Scholar under the supervision of Prof. Ashwini Nangia in July, 2004. Presently he is working in the area of organic more precisely crystal engineering and polymorphism in organic molecules including drug and synthesis.

Mark Twain Born: November 30th , 1835 Died: April 21st, 1910

-Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. -Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge. -Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

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N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 25

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum Octadecanuclear Manganese SingleMolecule Magnet: Synthesis and Magnetic Properties of [MnII4MnIII14(O)14(OAc)18(hmp)4(hmpH)2( H2O)2]

Dr. Akhilesh Kumar Gupta New MnII4MnIII14 cluster complex [Mn18O14(O2CMe)18(hmp)4 (hmpH)2(H2O)2] (1) was synthesized from the one pot reaction of Mn(OAc)2⋅4H2O, 2hydroxymethylpyridine (hmpH), AcOH and NBu4MnO4 in CH2Cl2, and dispays strong intramolecular antiferromagnetic coupling in dc magnetization measurements and temperature dependenct out-of-phase susceptibility signals in ac magnetization measurements, suggesting compound 1 as a new example of single-molecule magnet.

X-ray Structure of [Mn18O14(O2CMe)18(hmp)4(hmpH)2(H2O)2] (1) The synthesis of a magnetic molecule having unusually large spin value and large negative anisotropy value is an area of intensive current research, because it is the prerequisite for developing the emerging class of single-molecule magnets (SMMs). SMMs, nanometer-size single-domain magnetic clusters, have been found to display intramolecular magnetic hysteresis

loop due to very slow magnetic relaxation below their blocking temperature as well as steps in the hysteresis loop assigned to the presence of quantum tunneling of the magnetization.1 Since the dodecanulear manganese cluster with the composition [Mn12O12(O2CMe)16(H2O)4] (Mn12ac) had been discovered as an single-molecule magnet,2,3 many efforts have been made to achieve larger cluster compounds showing SMM behaviors. Especially, manganese carboxylate cluster chemistry has proved to be a rich source of a variety of polynuclear species.4 Specific examples of SMMs except Mn12ac include the tetranuclear cubane [MnIVMnIII3O3X]6+ core5 and [Fe4(sae)4(MeOH)4] (sae = 2-salicylideneamino-1-ethanol),6 the octanuclear Fe(III) cluster [Fe8O2(OH)12(tacn)6]8+ (tacn = tetraazacyclononane),7 and the tetranuclear butterfly complex [V4O2(O2CR)7(L)2]n+ (L=bipyridine or picolinate).8 Recently, a new family of Manganese-based SMMs, such as [Mn7(OH)3Cl3(hmp)9]2+ and [Mn12O8X4(O2CPh)8L8], has been designed by using of hmp- bridging ligand (hmpH = 2-hydroxymethylpyridine).9,10 We herein report a new octadecanuclear mixed-valent Mn-based SMM of formula [Mn18O14(O2CMe)18(hmp)4(hmpH)2(H2O)2] (1). Treatment of a stirred slurry of Mn(acetate)2⋅4H2O (200 mg), hmpH (0.4 mL) and acetic acid (2 mL) in 20 mL of methylene chloride with solid Bun4NMnO4 (290 mg) resulted in a dark brown solution. After 1 h, the solvent was removed in vacuo and the residue was recrystallized from CH2Cl2-Et2O to give dark brown crystalline solid of 1⋅6CH2Cl2 in a yield of ca. 25 %. A single crystal suitable for X-ray crystallography was grown by diffusion of hexane into the CH2Cl2 solution. An ORTEP diagram of 1† with atom labeling scheme is displayed in Figure 1. The centrosymmetric complex 1 consists of [Mn18(µ3-O)10(µ4-O)4] core with peripheral chelation provided by eighteen acetate ligands and six hmp- ligands, and two

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 26

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum terminal water molecules. On the basis of Jahn-Teller distortions and bond valence sum calculations, the seven manganese atoms (Mn1~Mn7) in a crystallographically asymmetric unit were assigned to MnIII and Mn8 and Mn9 to MnII. The elongated axial MnIII-O distances (2.144(4) ~ 2.456(4) Å) are significantly longer than the other bonds (1.854(3) ~ 1.977(4) Å). The MnII-O bond distances are in a range from 2.104(4) Å to 2.267(3) Å. As shown in the side view, ten manganeses atoms from Mn1 to Mn5 and their symmetry related partners are almost co-planar and comprise a central planar Mn10(µ3-O)6] unit. This planar [Mn10(µ3-O)6] unit was also observed in the other Mn18 cluster [Mn18O16(O2CPh)22(phthalate)2(H2O)4]4-.11 Two MnIII ions (Mn6, Mn7) are located above and below the [Mn10(µ3-O)6] plane and bridged by oxygen atoms to form a distorted cubane [Mn4(Ooxide)3(Ocarboxylate)] unit (Mn3, Mn4, Mn6, Mn7). The distance (3.610(1) Å) between two MnII ions is quite longer than the other Mn-Mn distances (2.810(1) ~ 3.211(1) Å). The octahedral geometry around Mn(8) is severely distorted such that the trans N1-Mn-O6 angle becomes 142.3(1) °. Charge considerations require protonation of two of oxygen donating ligands. Careful examination of structural parameters reveals that O29 is protonated and quite close to O9 (2.622 Å) due to H-bonding interactions. Magnetic susceptibility experiments were carried out on a powder sample 1 dried under air. Under these conditions, TGA experiment indicates ca. three CH2Cl2 molecules exist in a solid sample. The magnetic susceptibility data as a function of temperature, measured with an applied filed of 1 KG by using a SQUID magnetometer are displayed in Figure 2. χMT decreases almost linearly from 44.6 emuK/mol at 298 K to 33.6 emuK/mol at 58 K. It is clear that there are strong intramolecular antiferromagnetic exchange interactions.

(a)

(b) Fig. 1. (a) ORTEP diagram of 1 with atom numbering scheme. Selected distances (Å): Mn(1) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(1’) 2.823(2), Mn(1) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(2) 2.810(1), Mn(3) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(4) 3.082(1), Mn(3) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(6) 2.818(1), Mn(3) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(7) 3.210(1), Mn(4) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(5) 3.059(1), Mn(4) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(6) 2.940(1), Mn(4) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(7) 3.211(1), Mn(4) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(8) 3.119 (1), Mn(5) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(8) 3.203(1), Mn(6) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(7) 2.840(1), Mn(7) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(8) 3.116(1), Mn(8) ⋅⋅⋅ Mn(9) 3.610(1). (b) A side view emphasizing the planarity of [Mn10O6] unit

Fig. 2: Temp dependence of theχMT(•) and 1/χMT*() at 1000 Oe. N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 27

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum χMT = 59.5 emuK/mol is expected for an aggregate of noninteracting four S = 5/2 and fourteen S = 2 . Below ~50K, χMT drops faster down to 2.0 K (7.6 emuK/mol) indicating the existence of antiferromagnetic intermolecular interactions and/or zero-field splitting effects. Magnetization data were collected in the ranges 40-50 kG and 2.010.0 K and the reduce magnetization M/NµB is plotted as a function of H/T in Figure 3. The split of isofield lines shows that the zero-field splitting exists in the complex 1.

Also carried out were ac susceptibility measurements for the powder sample 1 in a 5.0 G ac field oscillating at 250 – 1000 Hz in the temperature range of 2.0 – 10 K. Preliminary results indicate that the out-ofphase(χM” ) signals showed a frequency dependence. As the frequency of the ac field is changed from 1000 to 250 Hz, the χM” peak shifted from 2.58 to 2.37 K. This ac behavior establishes the complex 1 as a new class of single-molecule magnet. Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the NRL program of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Korea. Crystal data: C78H108Cl12Mn18N6O58 (including six dichloromethanes), M = 3472.02, triclinic, space group P1, a = 14.411(1), b = 15.177(1), c = 15.729(1) Å, α = 70.328(2), β = 78.407(2), γ = 81.046(2) °, V = 3159.0(5) Å3, Z = 1, T = -100 °C., µ(MoKα) = 2.071 mm-1. 17933 reflections measured, 13817 unique (Rint = 0.0282) which were used in

all calculations. The final R(F) and wR(F2) were 0.0586 and 0.1348, respectively. References: 1. A. Caneschi, D. Gatteschi, C. Sangregorio, R. Sessoli, L. Sorace, A. Cornia, M. A. Novak, C. Paulsen, W. Werndorfer J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 1999, 200, 182. 2. T. Lis Acta Crystallogr. 1980, B36, 2042. 3. R. Sessoli, D. Gatteschi, A. Canneschi, M. A. Novak Nature 1993, 365, 141. 4. G. Aromi, S. M. J. Aubin, M. A. Bolcar, G. Christou, H. J. Eppley, K. Folting, D. N. Hendrickson, J. C. Huffman, R. C. Squire, H.-L. Tsai, S. Wang, M. W. Wemple Polyhdron, 1998, 17, 3005. 5. S. M. J. Aubin, S. Spagna, H. J. Eppley, R. E. Sager, G. Christou, D. N. Hendrickson Chem. Commun. 1998, 803. 6. H. Oshio, N. Hoshino, Y. Ito J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2000, 122, 12602. 7. Bara, A.-L., P. Debrunner, D. Gatteschi, Ch. E. Schulz, R. Sessoli Europhys. Lett. 1996, 35, 133. 8. S. L. Castro, Z. M. Sun, C. M. Grant, J. C. Bollinger, D. N. Hendrickson, G. Christou J. Am Chem. Soc. 1998, 120, 2365. 9. M. A. Bolcar, S. M. J. Aubin, K. Folting, D. N. Hendrickson, G. Christou Chem. Commun. 1997, 1485. 10. C. Boskovic, E. K. Brechin, W. E. Streib, K. Folting, D. N. Hendrickson, G. Christou Chem. Commun. 2001, 467. 11. R. C. Squire, S. M. J. Aubin, K. Folting, W. E. Streib, D. N. Hendrickson, G. Christou; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1995, 34, 887. Short Bio-data of the author: Dr. Akhilesh Kumar Gupta is Senior Research Scientist at Dept. of Chemistry, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China continuing research on Photovoltaics as well as OLEDs material. He has completed his PhD from North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong in the year 2000 and in the same year joined as post doctoral fellow at IIT, Kanpur in the group of Prof. N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 28

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum T.K.Chandrashekar (from June, 2000 to July, 2001) and did research on photodynamic theraupeutic agent based on expanded porphyrins at. He left for South Korea in August 2001 and did post Dcotoral studies at Department of Chemistry, Kongju National University, Kongju, Chungnam under supervision of Prof. Kim Jinkwon in the field of single molecule magnets based on 1 st series Transition Metals (From 20012003), followed by joining the group of Prof. Won Kyung Seok at Department of Chemistry, Dongguk University, Seoul, South Korea (from 2003 –2005) to pursue further research on Samsung Korea project based on ruthenium solar cell dye. After completing successfully he moved to Department of Organic Chemistry and Centre for Molecular Devices, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden to do further research on solar cell based on both ruthenium and organic dye (from 20052006). (Email: [email protected] )

---------------------0----------------------Do not keep company with a fool for as we can see he is a two-legged beast. Like an unseen thorn he pierces the heart with his sharp words.

By Chanakya (Indian politician, strategist and writer, 350 BC-275 BC)

Rain Drop Size Distribution and Radar Observation of precipitating system

Mr. Mahen Konwar, Almost in everybody’s life individual enjoys rain either in their childhood days or later part of their life. One good shower can turn a leafless deserted tree into a beautiful green tree; full of life!! Rain can bring out smile to the face of farmers who used to longing for rain to come or it can create beautiful poem in the mind of a poet!! Now a day’s one single heavy shower can even bring havoc to the city life that reflects the unplanned lifestyle that we are heading for. Such is the importance of rain in day to day life. Understanding of the rain drop size distribution (RDSD) is very important in the soil erosion, radio communication, forecasting and in studying the microphysics of rain phenomenon. Everybody experiences that generally at the very initial stage of a rain event, very large rain drops are observed then heavy rain that contain all types of rain drops (convective) followed by steady type of rain (stratiform). The convective rain lasts for lesser amount of time than that of stratiform type of rain. The transition period when convective type of rain is transformed into stratiform type of rain is named as “transition rain”. For better and complete understanding of rain phenomenon RDSD is the most widely term which is defined as the number of drops per unit volume per unit drop diameter. It is formulated as

N Di = ---------------------0----------------------

N D0 AWt ∆t

N

where Di is the number of drops per unit volume, of diameter D and terminal velocity

Wt , and N D0 is the number of

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 29

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum drops of diameter D collected on surface area A during time interval ∆t [Battan, 1959]. For the first time Marshal and Palmer in 1948, painstakingly measured rain drop size distribution and parameterized, they found that it follows an exponential shape [Marshall and Palmer, 1948]. Different RDSD models such as lognormal, gamma and Weibull distributions are also used to study rain characteristics. Joss-Waldvodgel disdrometer and video disdrometer can provide number of rain drops at different drop size ranges. Figure 1 shows the exponential, lognormal and gamma RDSD for different types of rain. For a tropical station at Gadanki it is found that the Gamma RDSD follows more closely to the natural DSD and better estimator of rainfall intensity R (mm hr-1) [Konwar et al. 2006].

Fig. 1 - Shows averaged number density spectra (solid line), exponential (dash line), lognormal (long short dash line) and gamma (dot line) RDSD for (a) 5 mm h-1, and (b) 25 mm h-1 rainfall intensities Radar can provide the overhead information of a precipitating system. At 1.3 GHz, due to the Rayleigh scattering, returned power of the radar signal gives valuable information of the precipitating system. Figure 2 shows the height time intensity (HTI) plot of signal to noise ratio (SNR) of a precipitating system. This observation is obtained from Lower Atmospheric Wind Profiler located at

National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) at Gadanki, India.

Fig. 2 – Shows the HTI plot of SNR of a precipitating system at Gadanki Readers can see the precipitating system up to the height of 8 km that contains the convective core at the initial stage, the rain intensity during this period is very high. In the later part the intense part of a bright band at the 00 isotherm level at ~ 4.5 km is visible (from ~ 0130 LT) which is known as stratiform type of rain. The presence of bright band signifies the presence of melting layer, from where the rain drops changes from solid to liquid phase where diffusional growth process dominates [Houze, 1997]. It is to be mentioned that during convective period rain drops coalescence themselves and in that process break up also takes place. When the coalescence and breakup process take place at equal rate the shape of the RDSD maintains a stable shape irrespective of large change of rain rates. To take place this process there must present strong updraft (~ 8ms-1 between 2.5-5.5 km) vertical air velocity, the obvious reason is that the smaller drops have less terminal velocity than that of the updraft motion and will sustain for longer time, in this process other drops will coalescence and bigger drops will form. Once the bigger drops will exceed the strength of updraft motion they will fall down and break up process may take place [Atlas and Ulbrich, 2000]. The RDSD in figure 1 (a) contains mostly data of stratiform type of rain while Fig2(b) contains that of convective type of rain. The understanding of precipitating system and estimation of rain fall intensity from radar and satellite are challenging research area in modern day atmospheric science. Globally many efforts are going on to understand the rain phenomenon by

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 30

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum networking radar systems. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a joint mission between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, USA) and the National Space Development Agency (NASDA Japan) contains Precipitating Radar on board and producing worthy data everyday. Acknowledgement: The Author is indebted to the Director, NARL for providing the Radar and Disdrometer data. Fruitful discussions with my colleagues are also gratefully acknowledged. References: 1. Atlas, D., C. W. Ulbrich, An Observationally Based Conceptual Model of Warm Oceanic Convective Rain in the Tropics, J. Appl. Meteor., 39, 2165-2181, 2000. 2. Battan, L. J., Radar Observation of the Atmosphere, The University of Chicago Press, 1959. 3. Houze,R.A. Jr., Stratiform precipitation in regions of convection: A meteorological paradox? Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 78, 2179–2196, 1997. 4. Konwar, M., D K Sarma, J. Das and S. Sharma, Shape of rain drop size distribution and classification of rain type at Gadanki, Ind J Radio Space Phys, 35, 360-367,2006. 5. Marshall, J. S., and W. M. Palmer, The distribution of raindrops with size. J. Meteor., 5, 165–166,1948.

Short biodata of the author: Mr. Mahen Konwar received his M. Sc. degree in Physics from Gauhati University. He is currently persuing his PhD degree from Jadavpur University, Kolkata & working as a research scholar under research program sponsored by Indian Space Research Organization at Kohima Science College, Nagaland. His research field is the study of convective precipitating system, rain drop size distribution and retrieval of rainfall intensity by soft computation techniques. -----------------------0---------------------------

Challenges in the Plant Biotechnology

Ms. N. Bhattacharyya Every human being depends primarily on agriculture for their food. Traditionally agriculture was targeted improving the production of plant derived food in terms of both quality and quantity. Gradually it is implemented; a shift from the production of low priced food and bulk commodities to high priced specialized plant derived products. Thus, the plant biotechnology has become popular and essential towards mankind. The world population is expected to reach 7 billion within next 25 years, over 10 billion in the year 2050, while agricultural production is growing at the slower rate of about 1.8 %. About 12 % of the world’s land surface is used to grow crops and the agricultural area required to support food production will probably reduce in coming years due to the population growth. Food productivity and security in the changing environment is becoming the burning problems of agricultural which may also lead to a search for alternative food sources. In this context plan biotechnology is a promising field which may lead to a successful solution. At present situation, the achievement and the development of plant biotechnology (table 1) is promising which may cooperate to overcome the need of the food supply with quality. Improvement of classical breeding, generation of engineered organisms and integration of microorganisms into agricultural production systems is the major steps of the present day plant biotechnology programmes. This will enhance the target organisms on the growth and development control (vegetative, generative and reproduction/propagation), protecting plants against the ever-increasing

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 31

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum threats of abiotic and biotic stress and expanding the horizons by producing specialty foods, biochemicals, pharmaceuticals etc. Indian plant biotechnology also has come of age accomplishing research projects of national and international importance (e.g. rice genome sequencing project). These biotechnological tools and its outcome have immense potential and the same is evident from the fact that currently over 130 million acres are planted under transgenic crops all over the world. The global market value of biotech crops was about 3.8 billion US dollars in 1998 (Gupta, 2002). The potential to improve plant and animal productivity and their proper use in agriculture relies largely on newly developed DNA biotechnology and molecular markers. These techniques enable the selection of successful genotypes, better isolation and cloning of favourable traits and the creation of transgenic organisms of importance to agriculture. In India, concerted efforts of several laboratories and generous support of the Department of Biotechnology and Indian Council of Agricultural Research along with the inputs from the Rockefeller Foundation are beginning to pay dividends and pave way for future progress towards sustainable agriculture. The "green revolution" for example, increased wheat production 10-fold in India and several other countries in South East Asia. Other than better production, biotech crops have also developed that may influence not only on the modern agriculture but also the community health. A new type of rice called "golden rice" is fortified through biotechnology with beta-carotene by engineered pathway for provitamin A biosynthesis and iron-rich rice (Wu, 2005). Such rice is expected to provide for vitamin A and iron deficiency in millions of undernourished children and women throughout the world. Similarly, plants are being used to produce vaccines and therapeutic agents like insulin, antibodies and drug biomolecules. Production of plastics and novel Fibre for

cloths is also expected to emerge from transgenic crops (Tyagi, 2000).. Are they safe? Although, there are lots of foods products, agricultural plants or organisms that have been modified by genetic manipulation e.g. genetically modified organisms (GMO) and foods. But, are they 100% safe for human or for the environment? It is a debatable question. It is already demonstrated that GM plants and the some other engineered organisms as presently being developed pose several environmental risks. Most criticisms of genetic engineering focus on food safety and environmental impacts. Some of the key questions are: • What impact will GMOs have on the health of those who eat them? Will some individuals develop allergic reactions? • "Bt corn," a common GMO, includes a gene from Bacillus thuringienis which produces a pesticide that kills the European corn borer. • StarLink is a variety of Bt corn that includes a protein (Cry9C) that does not break down as easily in the body, which increases the risk of allergic reactions in some people. • GM wheat could cross with native grasses (gene flow) to alter the makeup of the ecosystem and potentially create "super weeds" a possibility that has raised concerns in the "Wheat Belt" of the United States and elsewhere. • There is a worry over the potential impact of some GMOs on nontarget organisms. • It will soon be possible to engineer bacteria and viruses to produce deadly pathogens. It is the time to rethink in this direction. Plant biotechnology and its outcome are encouraging at present which might be environmentally safe also. Therefore, in the current R&D programmes researchers should focus on the better product development rather than just the publication

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 32

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum which in turn will make Plant Biotechnology more relevant and responsive to the society’s needs.

Reference 1. Tyagi A K, Plant Biotechnology for Agriculture and Human Health. India Chem 2000 October 6-8, 2000 2. Gupta PK, Molecular markers and QTL analysis in crop plants Curr. Sci., 2002, 83, 113–114. 3. G Wu et al., Stepwise engineering to produce high yields of very long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in plants, Nat. Biotechnol. 2005, 12, 1013–1017.

Short Biodata of the Author: Ms. Nabanita Bhattacharyya is working as a lecturer Department of Botany, Nowgong College, Assam. Her research area is Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. The title of her Ph.D thesis is ‘Investigation on physiological performances on Houttuynia cordata Thunb (Masandari)- with reference to its phytoremediation potential in uncultivable land’ Email: [email protected]

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4. http://www.struggle.ws/rbr/rbr5/biot ech.html Some rare pictures

This was how the Rocket Cone was transported to the Launch Pad at Thumba in the beginning

The person on the left... He is our very own... Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam...The present President of India N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 33

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum ABSTRACT OF PhD THESIS /RESEARCH WORK Ph. D. thesis abstract of Dr. Pompi Hazarika

Dr. Pompi Hazarika Title of Thesis: Biofunctionalized gold nanoparticles: Synthesis, Characterization and Applications The main objective of this project was to develop novel biofunctionalized gold nanoparticle (AuNP) probes applicable in the sensitive detection of biomolecules such as DNA and various proteins. They can be also applied as structural building blocks for the assembly of supramolecular nanoparticle architectures. Chapter1 Synthesis and characterization of DNA-functionalized gold nanoparticles (DNA-AuNPs) [1], [2] A new class of DNA-AuNPs named as oligofunctional conjugates, which contain from two up to seven different types of DNA oligonucleotides attached to the NP surface, was synthesized along with the conventional monofunctional conjugate containing only one type of DNA sequence (Figure 1). Depending on the number of DNA sequences they contain, the oligofunctional conjugates were termed as di-, tri-, tetra-, penta-, hexa- and heptafunctional conjugates. Initially, the DNA surface coverage on AuNPs was determined by means of a fluorescence-based assay to understand the interaction of oligonucleotides with AuNPs. Surface coverage studies revealed that the number of oligonucleotides bound per

Figure 1 Schematic representation of the synthesis of mono and oligofunctional DNA-AuNPs. Exemplified for the synthesis of heptafunctional conjugate. [1] could be easily controlled by varying the relative amounts of the oligonucleotides used during synthesis of the DNA-AuNPs. It was observed that the surface coverage of AuNPs with oligonucleotides was dependent on oligonucleotide length as well as on nanoparticle size. Then DNA-directed self-assembly of DNA-AuNPs in solution was carried out. This illustrated that the extent of surfaceplasmon band shift upon nanoparticle aggregation was dependent on the size of the aggregates formed. This, in turn, was dependent on the concentration of linker oligonucleotides used for the aggregation. In addition, the DNA-AuNPs were analyzed through solid phase based hybridization assays. The study of the effect of surface coverage of AuNP with DNA on the hybridization efficiency of difunctional conjugates revealed that the maximum efficiency resulted with as low as 20% surface coverage. The comparison of the hybridization capabilities of various oligofunctional conjugates showed that all the sequences in oligofunctional conjugates were functional, with almost unaltered hybridization capabilities as compared to the analogous monofunctional conjugates (Figure 2). In the case of oligofunctional conjugates, modification with up to seven different DNA sequences led to the formation of a complex orthogonal coupling system, in which individual oligomers could be selectively addressed by highly specific nucleic acid base pairing.

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 34

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Figure 2 Solid-phase hybridization of various DNA-AuNPs. [1] To test the simultaneous binding of the two individual recognition sites within difunctional conjugates, they were employed in the generation of surface bound particle layers. The use of difunctional conjugates for the particle layer formation prevented the direct binding of one layer to any of the underlying layers. The advantage of oligofunctional conjugates compared to the conventional monofunctional conjugates is that various recognition sites on the NPs in oligofunctional conjugates can be simultaneously tagged with a number of molecular and colloidal components. This enables the bottom-up assembly of complex biomolecule-functionalized nanoparticles.

presently available by chemical synthetic methods was synthesized. Biochemical methods, in particular, polymerase chain reaction, enzymatic restriction and ligation were used for the synthesis of the linker (Figure 3a). The formation of the DNA linker and the anticipated intermediate products were analyzed using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) (Figure 3b).

(a) Plasmid Primers PCR

1 a) BamHI Digestion b) Dephosphorylation with CIP

2

Ligation

3 SphI Digestion

4 Ligation

5

(b) bp

Figure 3 (a) Schematic drawing of the generation of surface-bound layers of particles by DNA hybridization using monoand difunctional DNA-AuNPs. (b) Absorbance measurements of the layer assembly. [1] Chapter 2 Biochemical synthesis and manipulation of a 70 nm DNA linker for the assembly of DNA-AuNPs [3] To study the organization of nanoparticles into surface bound layers, a DNA linker with dimension exceeding those

M

1

2

3

4

5

M

bp

500 

 500

200 

 200

100 

 100

50 

 50

Figure 3 (a) Schematic illustration of the synthesis of the DNA linker. (b) Electrophoretic mobility of various products on a 15% non-denaturing polyacrylamide gel. Lane 1: PCR product 1 (192 base pairs); lane 2: BamHI digested product 2 (185 bases); lane 3: ligated product 3 (197 bases); lane 4: SphI digested product 4 (190 bases); lane 5: ligated product 5, that is, the desired DNA linker (202 bases); lanes M: 50-bp DNA ladders. [3] N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 35

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum The functionality of the linker was confirmed using a solid phase hybridization assay. The linker was then employed in the DNA-directed assembly of AuNPs in solution, and the process was monitored using atomic force microscopy (AFM). AFM studies confirmed the formation of NP assemblies with interparticle spacing corresponding to the DNA linker used. Chapter 3 Reversible switching of DNAAuNP aggregation [4] The aggregation and redispersion of DNA-AuNPs were studied at ambient temperature using the concept of DNA oligonucleotide strand displacement. The reversible aggregation of DNA-AuNPs was carried out by taking advantage of two complementary fuelling oligonucleotides, Fa and Fd (Figure 4). The base sequence of Fa was comprised of three stretches, a’ and b’, which were complementary to the AuNP bound 12-mer oligomers 2a and 2b, respectively, as well as stretch c’, which promoted the hybridization of Fa and Fd. The transformation cycle started with state I in which the DNA-AuNPs were dispersed and revealed a characteristic plasmon absorption maximum at 526 nm (black spectrum). Upon addition of 32 molar equivalents of oligomer Fa (corresponding to the AuNPs) the particles aggregated (state II), and consequently, the plasmon absorption band was damped and shifted towards longer wavelengths (≈ 625 nm; red spectrum). In the next step, oligomer Fd which was fully complementary to oligomer Fa was added and incubated at 37 °C. Fd hybridized with Fa starting at the dangling end stretch c’ of the duplex DNA interconnecting the nanoparticles. This process, schematically shown as an intermediate state III, led to the formation of a waste duplex, the formation of which was driven by the free energy reduction of the system due to incremental base pairing. Consequently, the redispersion of the nanoparticles took place and an increase in

absorbance at 526 nm was observed (green spectrum).

(a)

(b)

Figure 4 (a) Schematic drawing of the reversible aggregation of DNA-AuNPs. (b) UV-Vis spectra of nanoparticle aggregation and dispersion. Notably, 2 equivalents of oligomer Fd4 (with respect to Fa4) were required to restore the original extinction of the dispersed particles. [4] To demonstrate the reversible switching of nanoparticle aggregation, seven consecutive cycles of aggregation and redispersion were carried out by adding fuelling oligomers Fa and Fd, respectively, to the mixture of DNA-AuNPs. After each addition of either Fa or Fd, UV/Vis spectra of the samples were recorded, and the extinctions at 526 and 700 nm were plotted against the number of steps of Fa and Fd additions (Figure 5).

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Figure 5 Reversible switching of the nanoparticle aggregation. Notably, high extinctions at 526 and 700 nm indicate the presence of dispersed and aggregated particles, respectively. [4] The successful results clearly demonstrated the feasibility of using fueling oligomers for reversible switching of nanoparticle aggregation at physiologically relevant conditions. This approach represents a new concept which opens up a novel route to generate nanomaterials with programmable functionalities. Chapter 4 Detection of proteins (IgG) by means of difunctional DNA-AuNPs [5] The protein-functionalized AuNPs have attracted much attention because of their potential utility in the detection of antigens, which are the specific biomarkers in the diagnostics of diseases. A DDI based approach was used for functionalization of AuNPs with proteins and the hybrid conjugates containing both DNA and proteins were employed in protein detection. The difunctional DNA-AuNP conjugates containing two different oligomer sequences were employed in the sensitive detection of IgG proteins. The optimal coating of DNAAuNPs with antibody was obtained with 64 and 32 molar equivalents of the antibody conjugate for the monofunctional and difunctional conjugates, respectively. Initially, gel electrophoretic analysis was carried out to confirm the specific immobilization of proteins on the nanoparticle’s surface and the functionality of the two DNA binding sites in the difunctional DNA-AuNPs. To carry out the immunoassay, one of the two sequences of

the difunctional conjugate was used to immobilize antibodies at the nanoparticle’s surface and the other one was used for signal amplification by means of DNA-directed assembly of multiple layers of nanoparticles (Figure 6a). A detection limit as low as 0.1 fmol of the antigen was obtained by using a simple and convenient photometric method (Figure 6b). The use of difunctional conjugates in this study allowed for carrying out the signal amplification step by simultaneous addition of all the necessary components. This enabled the reduction of time and costs of the immunoassay.

(a)

(b)

Figure 6 (a) Employment of antibody/DNAfunctionalized AuNPs as reagents in a sandwich immunoassay. Anti-mouse IgG functionalized AuNPs D2-Au 6 were used to label the surface bound antigens mouse IgG. In the next step a mixture of difunctional conjugates D2-Au 2 and D2-Au 3 along with complementary linkers 8 and 9 were added to form multilayer of AuNPs. (b) Signal intensities of the immunoassay obtained by UV-Vis spectroscopy. Grey bars: first layer of particles with monofunctional conjugate, White bars: first layer of particles with difunctional conjugate, Black bars: multilayer of particles. [5]

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum Chapter 5 Reversible binding of enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (EYFP) at DNA-AuNPs [6] To perform additional studies on the functionality and behavior of proteins upon binding to AuNPs, the fluorescent protein EYFP was used to bind reversibly to AuNPs. The binding of EYFP to AuNPs led to quenching of the protein’s fluorescence, and this phenomenon was used as the reporter of successful protein immobilization. Two types of DNA-AuNPs were used for hybridization with complementary DNA attached EYFP conjugate (Figure 7). A non-complementary conjugate was also used as a control. Successful immobilization of proteins on nanoparticles through specific Watson-Crick base pairing was confirmed by gel electrophoresis.

A B Figure 7 Schematic representations of hybrid conjugates formed by the functionalization of DNA-AuNPs with EYFP conjugate. [6] The study of the time dependent fluorescence measurement revealed that the conjugate where EYFP was located closer to the gold nanoparticle’s surface as compared to the other system led to higher quenching of fluorescence (Figure 8).

Figure 8 Plot of relative fluorescence of A (dashed line), B (solid line) and control (dotted line) with respect to the fluorescence

of EYFP conjugate (100%), at 528 nm, against different incubation times. [6] We then investigated whether the immobilized proteins could be restored from the gold nanoparticles (Figure 9). For this instance, DNA modified NPs containing a 4 nucleotide single-stranded overhang appended to the coding sequence was hybridized with the DNA conjugate of EYFP. It led to quenching of the EYFP’s fluorescence in the case of complementary conjugates (light grey bars in samples a, b). Following, displacement oligomers complementary to the sequences attached to AuNP were added. As shown in the figure (dark grey bars), the restorage of the fluorescence was clearly observable in the case of complementary particles (samples a, b), and this led to almost identical fluorescence intensities as compared with that of the control reaction containing the non-complementary particles (sample c). Then, to obtain fluorescence signals comparable to the starting material, the AuNPs in the solution were precipitated by increasing the salt concentration. Fluorescence measurements confirmed that after particle precipitation the signals were higher (white bars) than in the presence of the dispersed particles (dark grey bars). However, a complete restorage of the original EYFP fluorescence was not observed in any of the samples. As an alternative to the liberation of the EYFP, the particle bound DNA was stripped off by treatment with mercaptoethanol (ME). As shown by the black bars, the addition of mercaptoethanol led to almost complete restorage of the initial EYFP fluorescence.

Figure 9 Quenching and regeneration of the EYFP fluorescence. The relative N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 38

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum fluorescence values at 528 nm are shown. The light grey bars represent the fluorescence of conjugate A (sample a), B (sample b), or control (sample c). The dark grey bars represent the increased fluorescence of EYFP conjugate upon addition of strand displacement oligomers. The white bars represent the further increase in fluorescence upon increase of the NaCl concentration. The black bars represent the fluorescence obtained after treatment with ME. [6] Thus, it was demonstrated that proteins could be reversibly bound to DNAAuNPs under physiological conditions without compromising their biological activity. The use of fluorescent proteins in this study also demonstrated, for the first time, that these biological fluorophores could be incorporated into nanoparticlebased devices, thus leading to optically coupled hybrid architectures. Chapter 6 Functionalization of AuNPs with GTPase Rab protein [7] We further studied the protein functionalization of AuNPs using the GTPase Rab6a. To enable binding of the protein to AuNPs, Rab6a modified with a poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) linker was used. The PEG linker acts as a spacer between the protein and a terminal thiol group. The modified proteins can bind to AuNPs by chemisorption of the thiol group attached through the PEG spacer. The functionalization of AuNPs with GTPase protein Rab6a was studied by using two alternative approaches, based on either direct binding (Figure 10a) or ligand exchange (Figure 10b). Both approaches led to successful functionalization of nanoparticles with proteins. However, the conjugates obtained through the ligand exchange approach with DNA-AuNPs were considered advantageous due to their high stability and bifunctionality.

(a) Chemisorption

(b) Place exchange

Figure 10 Coupling of thiolated-Rab6a protein with (a) 25 nm citrate-stabilized gold nanoparticle through chemisorption, (b) DNA-functionalized gold nanoparticle to form DNA-protein-NP conjugate through ligand exchange reaction. [7] The protein-modified DNA-AuNPs were characterized by agarose gel electrophoresis (Figure 11). The mobility of DNA-AuNP is shown in lane 1. The addition of PEG linked Rab6a to DNAAuNP led to reduced mobility, thus indicating successful ligand exchange reaction (lane 2). The wild-type Rab6a (lane 3) and the N-Cys-Rab6a (lane 4) without PEG-linker were used as controls, and mixed with DNA-AuNPs. It was observed that they could also bind to DNA-AuNPs by ligand exchange with the thiol groups of the cysteine residues in the protein. However, in these cases binding was less efficient than the binding of PEG linked Rab6a, as judged from the electrophoretic mobility. Thus, these results illustrated the advantage of using a PEG spacer group to obtain nanoparticles bearing higher numbers of proteins. 1

2

3

4

Figure 11 Agarose gel of DNA-AuNPs with and without proteins attached to them. [7]

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 39

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum The retention of the full biological activity of the nanoparticle-immobilized proteins was confirmed using a nucleotide exchange assay. The successful functionalization of AuNPs with Rab6a would open up novel routes towards the application of such components to study the functionality of Rab6a in vivo by using the AuNP as a label. References 1. Niemeyer, C. M., Ceyhan, B., and Hazarika, P. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2003, 42, 5766-5770. 2. Hazarika, P., Giorgi, T., Reibner, M., Ceyhan, B., and Niemeyer, C. M. in Bioconjugation Protocols: Strategies and Methods (Niemeyer, C. M., ed.), Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey, 2004, 283, 295-304. 3. Hazarika, P., Irrgang, J., Spengler, M., and Niemeyer, C. M. Adv. Funct. Mater., 2007, 17, 437-442. 4. Hazarika, P., Ceyhan, B., and Niemeyer, C. M. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2004, 43, 6469-6471. 5. Hazarika, P., Ceyhan, B., and Niemeyer, C. M. Small, 2005, 1, 844-848. 6. Hazarika, P., Kukolka, F., and Niemeyer, C. M. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2006, 45, 6827-6830. 7. Becker, C. F. W., Marsac, Y., Hazarika, P. Moser, J., Goody. R. S., and Niemeyer, C. M. ChemBioChem, 2007, 8, 32-36.

Short biodata of the author: Dr. Pompi Hazarika was born in Assam in 1980. She obtained her B.Sc. degree from Biswanath College in 2000 and M.Sc. degree in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati in 2002. Then she moved to Germany to pursue her Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Christof M. Niemeyer at the Department of Chemical Biology in the University of Dortmund. In 2006, she received her Ph.D. degree, and joined the group of Prof. David Russell at the

School of Chemical Sciences and Pharmacy in the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, as a postdoctoral research associate.

---------------------0----------------------If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut. -Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater. -Before God we are all equally wise and equally foolish.

Albert Einstein Born: March 14, 1879, Ulm, Germany Died :April 18, 1955, Princeton, USA -I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Truth is what stands the test of experience.

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N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 40

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum Ph. D. thesis abstract of Dr. Sasanka Deka

Dr. Sasanka Deka Title of Thesis: Studies on the Magnetic and Electrical properties of Nanosized Transition Metal Oxides and Ferrites Nanosized magnetic materials have received great attention and importance during the last decade. Nanomagnetic material is one of the hottest subjects of present day research activities. The physical properties of nanosized magnetic materials differ considerably from that of their bulk counterparts and the magnetic characteristics of many materials can be tuned by reducing their size. The objectives of this research work are the synthesis and studies on the structural and magnetic properties of some selected transition metal oxides and ferrites in nanocrystalline form. The present research work has been carried out on transition metal doped zinc oxide based diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs), some ferrites and magneto-polymer nanocomposite systems. The respective nanocrystalline oxides are synthesized by a simple solution combustion method and characterized using various techniques. The results from the studies on different materials are presented in this thesis, consisting of six chapters. The first chapter is a brief introduction to magnetism, and a review of the structural and magnetic properties of the different magnetic oxides such as ZnO based diluted magnetic semiconductor materials, ZnFe2O4, Ni0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4, γ-Fe2O3, polymer/metal/ferrite nanocomposites and the Co/CoO/Co3O4 nanocomposites, studied in the present research work. The second chapter describes the method employed for the synthesis of the

nanocrystalline oxides. All the experimental methods and characterization techniques used are briefly discussed in the specific sections. Synthesis procedures and the structural and magnetic properties of the transition metal (Co, Ni, Mn and Fe) doped nanocrystalline ZnO are discussed in the third chapter. The nanocrystalline materials having particle sizes in the range of 10-40 nm are synthesized by an autocombustion method. Optical and XPS studies showed that the Zn ions have been replaced by divalent transition metal ions in the tetrahedral site of the wurtzite structure of ZnO. Room temperature ferromagnetism is observed after doping Co, Ni and Fe in ZnO. However, the magnetic properties change drastically when the synthesize procedure is modified slightly. Mn doped ZnO samples are found to be always paramagnetic down to 12 K. The origin of the observed ferromagnetism is found to be from metallic nanoclusters or secondary ferromagnetic phases depending on the synthesis conditions and metal ions used. The detailed studies on the synthesis, characterization, and magnetic properties of nanocrystalline NiZn ferrite, Ni0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4, are discussed in the fourth chapter. Narrow particle size distribution with high rate of reproducibility is achieved by using a simple autocombustion method for the synthesis. The TC of the nanocrystalline ferrite is increased to large values due to the unusual cation distribution in the nanosized ferrite. The nanosized ferrite sintered using Bi2O3 and Ag as additives showed good microstructure, high density at low sintering temperatures, very high magnetic permeability and dielectric constant values at room temperature. The fifth chapter deals with synthesis and studies on the structural and magnetic properties of nanocrystalline ZnFe2O4 and γ-Fe2O3. Single phase of superparamagnetic ZnFe2O4 obtained when smaller amounts of glycine is used as the fuel in the autocombustion reaction. However, Fe3O4 is found to be formed as a secondary phase, when larger amounts of N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 41

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum glycine are used. Zn-doped γ-Fe2O3 is synthesized by the same autocombustion method. Zn-doping is found to stabilize the maghemite phase and increases the transformation temperature to the hematite phase. The sixth chapter deals with the synthesis, characterization and preliminary studies on some magnetic nanocomposites. Ni/NiFe2O4 and Co/CoFe2O4 nanocomposites are synthesized under in situ conditions by an autocombustion method. The composites are then blended with PVDF polymer matrix. Moderate values of initial permeability and dielectric constant are obtained for the polymer/metal/ferrite nanocomposites, comparable to that reported in the literature. Co/CoO/Co3O4 nanocomposite is synthesized using the same autocombustion method. This nanocomposite could be transformed to Co/CoO nanocomposite by proper reduction at elevated temperatures. Short biodata of Dr. Sasanka Deka: Dr. Sasanka Deka, born in Guwahati, hails from Biahata Chariali, Kamrup, Assam. He has completed his B.Sc. degree from B. Barooah College, Guwahati in 1998 and Master degree from the department of Chemistry, Gauhati University in 2000. After clearing CSIR-UGC-NET he joined in the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune as a research fellow under the supervision of Dr. P. A. Joy and obtained Ph.D. degree from the University of Pune in 2007. The title of his thesis is ‘Studies on the Magnetic and Electrical properties of Nanosized Transition metal oxides and Ferrites.’ He is a recipient of national merit scholarship. His primary interest of research areas are materials science, nanomaterials, oxide nanoparticles, magnetism and semiconductor. He has 11 publications in peer-reviewed international journals with few more in the national journals, symposia and conference proceedings. Currently he is a postdoctoral fellow in National Nanotechnology laboratory, Lecce, Italy. The present supervisor of his work is Dr.

Liberto Manna. At present Dr. Deka is working on size and shape control of II-VI and III-V semiconductor materials using colloidal synthesis method.

---------------------0----------------------Truth is generally the best vindication against slander -Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) (16th President of the United States of America) -Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. -Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

EVENTS FROM HISTORY OF SCIENCE This issue: Some important years in the development of Polymers 1500: British explorers discovered ancient Mayan civilization in Central America. The Mayans are assumed to be among the first to find an application of polymers, as their children were fond of playing with balls made from local rubber trees. 1839: Discovery of Vulcanization process by Charles Goodyear 1862: First man made plastic created by Alexander Parkes known as Parkesine was an organic material derived from cellulose 1868: John Wesley Hyatt invented celluloid as a substitute for the ivory in billiard balls, later celluloid became famous as the first flexible photographic film used for still photography and motion pictures. 1907: Leo Bakeland fabricated Bakelite, the first fully synthetic resin to become commercially successful. 1917: Chemical structure of cellulose was established by M.Polanyi with the help of Xray crystallography. 1920: Staudinger published his research paper on polymer and used successfully the Macromolecular concept. 1930: Invention of polystyrene, one of the most widely used polymer. 1935: Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett discovered Low density polyethylene or LDPE 1936: Invention of Polymethyl methacrylate took place, a popular plastic mostly used for display and advertising applications and for contact lenses. 1938: Production of Nylon by Wallace Carothers of the Dupont company. 1941: Polyethylene Terephthalate or PET was invented by Whinfield and Dickson. 1950: Ziegler Natta Catalytic Polymerization was developed by Karl Ziegler (Germany) and Giulio Natta (Italy). 1953: Staudinger received Nobel Prize for his contributions in chemistry.

1971: Development of Kevlar by S.K. Wolek. 1977: Conducting polymer discovered by Hideki Shirawaka, Alan J. Heeger and Alan G. MacDiarmid 1985: Development of Liquid crystal polymers, one of the most important discoveries in the field of polymer. 2000: Nobel prize in chemistry was given to Hideki Shirawaka, Alan J. Heeger and Alan G. MacDiarmid for the discovery and development of conducting polymers. (Compiled by Dr. Rashmi Rekha Devi, Scientist, DRDO, Kanpur, India)

---------------------0----------------------A friend to all is a friend to none. -Quality is not an act, it is a habit. -The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain. -The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival. -The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live. -Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing. Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) Greek philosopher

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

INFORMATION ABOUT MEMBER 1. Dr. Prakash Jyoti Saikia from Jorhat, Assam did his B.Sc from Jagannath Barooah College, Jorhat (Dibrugarh University) in 1995. He did his M.Sc from Dibrugarh University (1996-1998 batch), India with specialization in Physical Chemistry. He did his Ph. D from Regional Research Laboratory (CSIR), Jorhat, India (Degree awarded by Dibrugarh University, Assam)

Dr. Prakash J. Saikia with thesis entitled ‘Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization of Alkyl (Meth)Acrylates Having Pendent Alkyl Side Chains’ in the year 2003. His PhD research advisors were Dr. S. D. Baruah(Scientist EII, Petroleum & Natural Gas Division Regional Research Laboratory (CSIR), Jorhat, India ) and Prof. N. N. Dass (Director, Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology, Guwahati, India). Dr. Prakash J. Saikia is at present working as a post doctoral fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Inha University, Incheon, South Korea( September 2005 - ). Before joining Inha University he was working as postdoctoral research fellow in the Université du Maine, Le Mans, France(January, 2004 – January, 2005). His area of research is: Controlled Radical Polymerization (CRP) in the homogeneous and heterogeneous system, Composite latexes particles and the particle morphology, Reactive chain-end functionalized polymers and stereo chemical study of polymers, Structural investigation and thermal degradation kinetics of polymers, polymer blends Rheological properties of polymers, Oil-field chemicals

etc. He was awarded senior research fellowship (by CSIR, India) in the year 2003. He received Best Poster presentation award, for the poster presented in 4th IUPAC sponsored International Symposium on Radical Polymerization: Kinetics and Mechanism, SML ’06, Il Ciocco, Castelvecchio Pascoli, ITALY, 3-9 Sep., 2006.

2. Mr. Khirud Gogoi (9th April, 1980) is from Amguri, Jorhat, India. He did his B. Sc. (Chemistry) from Govt. Science College, Jorhat,( Dibrugarh University) First class First (Top Ranked) in 2000. He did his M. Sc.(Organic Chemistry) from Gauhati University, Guwahati, , First Class First (Top Ranked) in Gauhati University, 2003.

Mr. Khirud Gogoi At present he is carrying out research for his Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry Division, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India (April 2003-till date.). He qualified CSIR-UGC JRF examinations two times held in 2002 (June and December) and GATE in 2003. His present position in NCL is Senior Research Fellow (since 2005). His research interests are organic chemistry and chemical biology, research focused on Nucleic Acids modifications and their application in antisense therapeutics. His work was also featured in a Research Highlight in Chemical Biology, 2006, volume 6. Recently he attended a symposium organised by Biochemical Society on "Cell Penetrating Peptides Meeting" held at University Of Wolverhampton, Telford, United Kingdom on 9th-11th May 2007 where he Presented a paper entitled "Synthesis Of Cell Penetrating Peptide-Pna Conjugates By Chemoselective Click Chemistry".

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HIGHER STUDY ABROAD Country of this issue: Italy Information on study and research in Italy: requirements, grants, universities, life in Italy etc. you will find in the following websites. www.study-in-italy.it/ Universities In Italy Abdus Salam international centre for theoretical physics (www.ictp.trieste.it/) Basilicata University Potenza (www.unibas.it/) Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome (www.unicampus.it/) European University Institute (www.iue.it/) Higher School of University and Advanced Studies Pisa (www.sssup.it/) International Higher School for Advanced Studies Trieste (www.sissa.it/) Johns Hopkins University, SAIS Bologna Center (www.jhubc.it/) Polytechnic Institute of Bari (www.poliba.it/) Polytechnic Institute of Milan (www.polimi.it/) Polytechnic Institute of Turin (www.polito.it/) Pontifica Università Gregoriana (www.unigre.it/) Pontificia Università Lateranense (www.pul.it/) Pontificia Università S. Tommaso (www.angelicum.org/) Pontificio Ateneo Antonianum (www.antonianum.ofm.org/) Second University of Naples (www.unina2.it/) Third University of Rome (www.uniroma3.it/) University Institute of Architecture Venice (www.iuav.unive.it/) University of Ancona (www.unian.it/) University of Aquila (www.univaq.it/) University of Bari (www.uniba.it/) University of Bergamo (www.unibg.it/) University of Bologna(www.unibo.it/)

University of Brescia (www.unibs.it/) University of Cagliari(www.unica.it/) University of Calabria(www.unical.it/) University of Camerino (www.unicam.it/) University of Cassino (www.unicas.it/) University of Catania (www.unict.it/) University of Chieti (www.unich.it/) University of Ferrara (www.unife.it/) University of Florence (www.unifi.it/) University of Genoa (www.unige.it/) University of Lecce (www.unile.it/) University of Macerata (www.unimc.it/) University of Messina (www.unime.it/) University of Milan (www.unimi.it/) University of Milan – Bicocca (http://www.unimib.it/) University of Modena (www.casa.unimo.it/) University of Molise (www.unimol.it/) University of Naples Federico II (www.unina.it/) University of Padua (www.unipd.it/) University of Palermo (www.unipa.it/) University of Parma (www.unipr.it/) University of Pavia (www.unipv.it/) University of Perugia (www.unipg.it/) University of Pisa (www.unipi.it/) University of Reggio Calabria (www.unirc.it/) University of Roma "La Sapienza" (www.uniroma1.it/) University of Roma "Tor Vergata" (www.uniroma2.it/) University of Salerno (www.unisa.it/) University of Sannio (www.unisannio.it/) University of Sassari (www.uniss.it/) University of Siena (www.unisi.it/) University of Teramo (www.unite.it/) University of Trento (www.unitn.it/) University of Trieste (www.univ.trieste.it/) University of Turin (www.unito.it/) University of Udine (www.uniud.it/) University of Urbino (www.uniurb.it/) University of Venice (www.unive.it) University of Verona (www.univr.it/) Università Bocconi (www.uni-bocconi.it) Università Pontificia Salesiana (www.unisal.it/) Viterbo State University (www.unitus.it/) Yorker International University, Milano (www.nyuniversity.net/) N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 45

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THROUGH THE LENSE OF FORUM MEMBERS By Mr. Mahen Konwar

By Dr. Joshodeep Boruwa

Sediment of life Meersburg, Germany

Konstanz Lake , Germany Apekhya By Dr. Arindam Adhikari

Freedom Stockholm, Sweden

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UPCOMING CONFERENCE POLY-2007: Second Circular: Call for Papers International Seminar on Frontiers in Polymer Science and Technology : POLY-2007 Date: 1-3 November, 2007 Venue: Administrative Staff College, Khanapara, Guwahati, Assam, India Organizer: Prof. Sukumar Maiti Polymer Award Foundation, Kolkata, India Collaborators: Tezpur University, Assam, India; Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India Themes: 1. Novel polymer synthesis and characterization. 2. Polymer blends and polymer nanocomposites. 3. Bio-medical applications of polymers. 4. Polymers in electronics. 5. New catalysts for olefin polymerization. 6. Recycling of polymers and biodegradable polymers. 7. Pollution by polymers and polymer waste management. Call for papers: Full papers may be sent in MS word document within 4-5 pages of A4 size paper together with a print copy. The papers will be published in a special issue of Journal of Polymer Materials. Prizes: 1. Foundation award 2007 for the best researcher in polymer science and technology in India. Selection is in process. Contact: Prof. B. C. Ray, Jadavpur University ( [email protected]). 2. S. N. Ghosh Memorial Award will be given to the young scientist (Under 32 years) for the best paper presentation in the conference. 3. Conference prizes will be given to the young scientist (Under 32 years) for the best paper presentation in the different themes of the conference. Registration fee: 1. Delegates from Industry: Rs.2000/- , from Academic Institutions / R & D organizations: Rs.1000/-, Students and research Scholars: Rs.250/from Foreign country : US$300 Payment (Demand Draft) should be made in favour of “Prof. Sukumar Maiti Polymer Award Foundation” payable at Kolkata. Cultural Program: Cultural program and local tour will be organized by the organizer Travel Assistance: Few students and retired scientists/ teachers will be given travel assistance for which separate request may be sent to the convenor on or before 11 September, 2007. Last date for receiving abstract of the paper: 11 July, 2007; full paper: 11 August, 2007; Registration fee: 11 September, 2007; Late registration fee : 10% extra Patron: Dr. T. Ramasami, Secretary, DST, New Delhi. Advisors: Prof M. K. Choudhuri, Vice-chancellor, Tezpur University, Prof. D. Konwer,Dean, Tezpur University, Prof. S. K. Sanyal, Vice-chancellor, Jadavpur University, Dr. S. Sivaram, Director, NCL, Pune Convenor: Prof. S. K. Dolui, Tezpur University Chairman: Prof. B. C. Ray, Jadavpur University Address for correspondance: 1. Prof. S. K. Dolui, Convenor, POLY-2007 2. Prof. B. C Ray, Chairman, POLY-2007 Tezpur University, Napaam-784028 Dept. of Chemistry, Jadavpur University Assam, India, E-mail: [email protected] Kolkata-700032, W.B., India Tel: +913712-224641 (R), Mobile: +919435464389 E-mail: [email protected] Fax: 03712-267006 Mobile: +919433245758, Fax- 033-24137121, 3. Dr. S. U. Choudhury, Secretary, POLY-2007 Dept. of Chemistry, Cotton College, Guwahati, Assam E-mail: [email protected] Mobile:+919864179850

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Technical University of Denmark Ph.D. position and Post-Doc position in cryptology Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD position and a 1-year PostDoc position both starting January 1, 2008, within the field of cryptology at the Department of Mathematics, Technical University of Denmark (www.mat.dtu.dk). The topic of the project is cryptanalysis of symmetric cryptographic primitives, in particular block ciphers, stream ciphers and hash functions. Further information can be obtained from Professor Lars R. Knudsen, Department of Mathematics, DTU, phone: (+45) 4525 3048, e-mail: Knudsen (at) mat.dtu.dk. To apply please read the full texts of the announcements for Postdoc and PhD. Applications must be received no later than October 1st, 2007 at 12.00 (GMT+1.00)

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http://www.mrseiler.org/cartoons.html (by Nick D Kim)

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 48

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Karolinska Institutet is looking for a

Postdoctoral position RNA Structural Biochemistry funded by scholarship Department / unit or equivalent: Form of employment: Scope: Time period: Description of the work group/equivalent and its work/focus:

Department of Cell and Molecular Biology Temporary Full-time Two years The Department of Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB) at the Karolinska Institutet is strongly focused on basic science conducting research in several areas of cell, molecular, and developmental biology. CMB is comprised of more than 20 independent research groups organized in five themes: Molecular Cell Biology, Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Gene Regulation, Genome Structure and Integrity and Infection and Cancer. The group of Martin Hällberg is the first group in the department to apply X-ray crystallography as its main technique. Focus of study is tRNA processing, modification and transport. Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) must be recognisable to the correct aminoacyl-tRNA synthase, by elongation factors and by elements on the ribosome to deliver their valued aminoacid cargo to the growing peptide chain through the action of the ribosome. In all kingdoms of life, mechanisms are in place to ensure the fidelity and efficiency of tRNA function. We aim to understand the structural basis of tRNA maturation and transport by studying the molecular structure of proteins - both with and without target RNA – that are involved in processing, modification and nucle-cytoplasmatic transport of tRNA. Please note that according to the rules for scholarship stipends at Karolinska Institutet a scholarship for the pursuit of postdoc studies may be awarded to a foreign citizen who has obtained a doctorate or the equivalent outside Sweden. The head of department decides whether the education and scientific qualifications in question can be regarded as equivalent to at least those of a Swedish doctorate. The basis of the assessment made by the head of department must be clearly set out in the scholarship decision. A scholarship for the pursuit of postdoc studies may be awarded for up to two years in the five years following the public defence (or equivalent) of a doctoral thesis.

Area of responsibilities/duties: Qualifications:

Successful candidates will participate in all steps involved in structure determination of target proteins and target RNA/protein complexes. Suitable candidates have a PhD in a relevant area, preferably in RNA Biochemistry, Structural Biology or related subjects. General requirement to be eligible for this position is a doctoral degree from a University outside Sweden.

Contact Application procedure:

Martin Hällberg ; 08-524 866 30; [email protected] Please send your application by email. The application should contain a cover letter and a CV with publication list. Names and emails of two referees should be also provided. Please, use reference “Dnr 2966/2007”. Application sent to: Karolinska Institutet CMB Martin Hällberg Box 285 171 77 Stockholm email: [email protected] Reference number: 2966/2007 Last date for applications: July 18 2007 Karolinska Institutet is one of the leading medical universities in Europe. Through research, education and information, Karolinska Institutet contributes to improving human health. Each year, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 49

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Job Advertisement 08/2007 The Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology – Hans Knoell Institute – investigates the pathobiology of human-pathogenic fungi and identifies targets for the development of novel natural product-based antibiotics (www.hki-jena.de). Our Department Infection Biology invites applications for a

Postdoctoral position

(two years initially)

and a

PhD position Successful candidates will investigate the immune evasion by pathogenic microbes, in particular yeasts. Requirements: Doctoral or Master/Diploma degree in biology, medicine or life sciences for the Postdoc or the PhD positions, respectively. Experience in standard techniques of molecular biology, biochemistry, complementology, as well as microbiology are expected. Excellent knowledge and skills in infection biology, microbial pathogenicity (bacteria, fungi), cellular microbiology and/or yeast biology are advantageous. Salary is paid according to German TV-L. The Hans Knoell Institute is an equal opportunity employer. For further informations please contact: Prof. Dr. Peter F. Zipfel, phone +49 (0) 3641 656900, e-mail: [email protected]. Please send your complete application including a list of three potential referees indicating the job posting No. 08/2007 to [email protected] or to Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology Personnel Department – Hans Knoell Institute – Beutenbergstrasse 11a 07745 Jena Germany Please note: Printed applications will not be sent back!

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 50

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Postdoctoral position in insulin signaling and modulation by nutritional approaches Job Title: Postdoctoral position Employer: University of Lleida Location: Lleida, Spain Date: Jul 02, 2007 Job Type: Contract

A PhD is sought with experience in cell biology comprising cell signaling techniques, cell culture, experimental animal (ob/ob mice and similar) handling. Position will be renewed, after external auditory, for a maximum of 3 year-lenght. Experience in metabolomics, proteomics and nutritional sciences would be also desirable, but formation is offered in those fields. Further information is available at e-mail: [email protected] or at phone +34-973702408 Requirements: Two letters of recommendation Capabilities of team working in a larger group A good background in cell biology and basic biochemistry Skills for directing work and instructing fellows at a technical level An established record of publications in related fields Contact: Manuel Portero-Otin c/Montserrat Roig,2 Lleida, Spain 25008 Phone: 34 973702408

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 51

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Job Title: PhD student Employer: Inst. of Pathology – TUDresden Location: Dresden, Germany 01307 Date: Jul 11, 2007 Job Type: Full Time In the autumn of 2007 we will start a new independent young research group as part of the Emmy Noether program (DFG). We study the role of hypoxia during tumor development and inflammatory diseases in vivo. Therefore, we have an open position for a: - PhD student We offer: • A 4 year position at PhD student level in an Emmy Noether excellence Team (salary: BATO IIa/2). • A stimulating work environment in one of the most exciting scientific cities in Germany. Our location is the Institute of Pathology, and we are part of the Faculty of Medicine and the University Clinic `Carl Gustav Carus' at the University of Technology Dresden (TUDresden). Our new research group is also strongly linked to the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. For more information on our new group: http://www.tu-dresden.de/hypoxia Life and work in Dresden: http://www.dresden.de/en/c_06.php Send your application with CV and reference(s) to: Dr. Ben Wielockx, Unit for Hypoxia Signaling in Inflammation, Institute of Pathology Medical faculty - TU Dresden Schubertstrasse 15 - 01307 Dresden - Germany e-mail: [email protected] Requirements: Profile: - Student with a master in biology, biomedical science, biotechnology or equivalent. - Background in immunology and molecular biology is recommended. - You are willing to work with mice (experience is an advantage) - You are practical, social and communicative. - You have an excellent knowledge of English, both written and spoken. - Knowledge of German is an advantage but not necessary. Contact: Ben Wielockx Schubertstrasse 15 Dresden, Germany 01307 Phone: +49/3514583038

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 52

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Details about the Northeast India Research Forum Date of creation of the forum : 13th November 2004 Area: Science and Technology Total number of members till date: 142 Moderators: 1. Arindam Adhikari, Ph.D. Institute of Surface Chemistry, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Email: [email protected] 3. Utpal Borah, Ph.D. Gifu Pharmaceutical University, Japan Email: [email protected]

2. Jadab Sharma, Ph.D. Email: [email protected]

4. Ashim J. Thakur, Ph.D. Chemical Science Dept, Tezpur University, Tezpur, Assam Email: [email protected]

Editorial Team of NE Quest 1. Dhanapati Deka, Ph.D. Reader, School of Energy, Environment and natural reseources, Tezpur University, Assam Email: [email protected]

2. Tankeswar Nath, Ph.D. Scientist, R&D, Biotechnology, Jubilant Organosys Ltd. Gajraula, UP, India Email: [email protected] (Volunteer editor of this Issue )

3. Manab Sharma, Ph.D. Dept of Chemistry, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel. Email: [email protected]

4. Rashmi Rekha Devi, Ph.D Scientist, Defence Material & Stores Research & Dev. Establishment, DRDO, Kanpur. Email: [email protected] 6. Pankaj Bharali, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, India. Email: [email protected]

5. Joshodeep Boruwa, Ph.D. Fachbereich Chemie, L-940 Universitat Konstanz D-78457, Konstanz, Germany 7. Pranjal Saikia I&PC Division IICT, Hyderabad, India Email: [email protected]

8. Áshim Thakur, Ph.D. 9. Utpal Borah, Ph.D. 10. Arindam Adhikari, Ph.D.

Logo designed by: Manab Sharma, Ph.D. Email: [email protected]

Cover page designed by: Anirban, Pune

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/northeast_india_research/ http://www.geocities.com/ne_india_research_forum/

N. E. Quest; Volume 1, Issue 2, July 2007, 53