Chemical Biology

The sustainability of agricultural practices is increasingly critical amid environmental challenges. While effective, traditional soil-based agricultural methods often contribute to soil degradation and resource depletion. The earth’s topsoil has eroded by 50% during the last 150 years. In addition to this, soil has also been affected by agricultural practices.  These effects include compaction, loss of soil structure, nutrient degradation, and soil salinity [1].

Bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) serves as a bio-inspired platform for developing multifunctional metamaterials, with potential applications in energy storage, aerospace, and biomedical technologies. This research integrates three key studies aimed at enhancing BNC’s performance and versatility. First, UV Radiation-Enhanced Production Yield increases scalability through sustainable biosynthesis, optimizing BNC production for larger-scale applications.

Glycans are a class of carbohydrate oligomers that densely coat many cell surface proteins and lipids, acting as the first point of contact between a cell and its microenvironment. A network of over 700 glycan-processing enzymes, 10 monosaccharides, and architectural complexity give rise to diverse glycan structures with specific biological functions. Cell-surface proteins can act as receptors for glycans, initiating binding events which influence myriad biological processes within the cell.

Over the past two decades, there has been a significant surge of interest in the field of ultraviolet and/or visible (UV/vis) light photocatalysis. UV-vis irradiation merged with noble metal-based photosensitizers of Ru, Ir as catalysts is most useful combination in this segment as these metal photocatalysts mostly absorb in the UV/vis region. However, high energy UV/vis irradiation sources as well as the noble-metal based photosensitizer are not considered as green.