Monday's Molecule #148

 

Today, as a special treat, you get to identify three (3) different molecules. Give me the complete, unambiguous, names of these molecules to win a free lunch. Post your answer in the comments. I'll hold off releasing any comments for 24 hours. The first one with the correct answer wins. I will only post correct answers to avoid embarrassment.

There could be two winners. If the first correct answer isn't from an undergraduate student then I'll select a second winner from those undergraduates who post the correct answer. You will need to identify yourself as an undergraduate in order to win. (Put "undergraduate" at the bottom of your comment.) Every undergraduate who posts a correct answer will have their names entered in a Christmas draw. The winner gets a free autographed copy of my book! (One entry per week. If you post a correct answer every week you will have ten chances to win.)

Some past winners are from distant lands so their chances of taking up my offer of a free lunch are slim. (That's why I can afford to do this!)

Name the molecules shown in the figure. Remember that your names have to be unambiguous. The best way to do this is to use the full IUPAC name but usually there are traditional names that will do. In this case there are trivial names for all of the molecules but make sure you have the stereochemistry correct.

New Rule: In order to win you must post your correct name. Anonymous and pseudoanonymous commenters can't win the free lunch.

UPDATE: Oh, oh. There's only one correct answer—congratulations Jason Oakley. I posted another answer that's almost correct (should be L-sorbose). All the rest of you need to review your understanding of Fischer projections. Here's a hint: Name This Molecule #1.

Winners
Nov. 2009: Jason Oakley, Alex Ling
Oct. 17: Bill Chaney, Roger Fan
Oct. 24: DK
Oct. 31: Joseph C. Somody

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Monday's Molecule #147

 

Give me the complete, unambiguous, name of this molecule to win a free lunch. Post your answer in the comments. I'll hold off releasing any comments for 24 hours. The first one with the correct answer wins. I will only post correct answers to avoid embarrassment.

There could be two winners. If the first correct answer isn't from an undergraduate student then I'll select a second winner from those undergraduates who post the correct answer. You will need to identify yourself as an undergraduate in order to win. (Put "undergraduate" at the bottom of your comment.) Every undergraduate who posts a correct answer will have their names entered in a Christmas draw. The winner gets a free autographed copy of my book! (One entry per week. If you post a correct answer every week you will have ten chances to win.)

Some past winners are from distant lands so their chances of taking up my offer of a free lunch are slim. (That's why I can afford to do this!)

Name the molecule shown in the figure. Remember that your name has to be unambiguous. The best way to do this is to use the full IUPAC name but usually there are traditional names that will do.

Winners
Nov. 2009: Jason Oakley, Alex Ling
Oct. 17: Bill Chaney, Roger Fan
Oct. 24: Bill Chaney

UPDATE: The winner is Joseph C. Somody.

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Monday's Molecule #146

 

Give me the complete, unambiguous, name of the molecule to win a free lunch with me.¹ Post your answer in the comments. I'll hold off releasing any comments for 24 hours. The first one with the correct answer wins.

There could be two winners. If the first correct answer isn't from an undergraduate student then I'll select a second winner from those undergraduates who post the correct answer. You will need to identify yourself as an undergraduate in order to win. (Put "undergraduate" at the bottom of your comment.) Every undergraduate who posts a correct answer will have their names entered in a Christmas draw. The winner gets a free autographed copy of my book! (One entry per week. If you post a correct answer every week you will have ten chances to win.)

Some past winners are from distant lands so their chances of taking up my offer of a free lunch are slim. (That's why I can afford to do this!)

Name the molecule shown in the figure. Remember that your name has to be unambiguous. The best way to do this is to use the full IUPAC name but usually there are traditional names that will do.

UPDAYE: The winner is DK.

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1. Or with Johnny Depp or Angelina Jolie, depending on who's available on a given day.

Monday's Molecule #145

 

I'm restarting Monday's Molecule. The last one was almost two years ago [Monday's Molecule #144].

The rules have changed a bit. Monday's Molecule will no longer be linked to a Noble Prize because I'm running out of Nobel Prizes that lend themselves to such a linkage. All you have to do is supply the complete, unambiguous, name of the molecule to win a free lunch. Post your answer in the comments. I'll hold off releasing any comments for 24 hours. The first one with the correct answer wins.

There could be two winners. If the first correct answer isn't from an undergraduate student then I'll select a second winner from those undergraduates who post the correct answer. You will need to identify yourself as an undergraduate in order to win. (Put "undergraduate" at the bottom of your comment.)

Some past winners are from distant lands so their chances of taking up my offer of a free lunch are slim. Many of them have kindly donated their free lunch to the next contest.

Name the molecule shown in the figure. Remember that your name has to be unambiguous. The best way to do this is to use the full IUPAC name but there are several traditional names that will do.

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Monday's Molecule #144: Winner?

 
The creature is the spirochete, Treponema pallidum. This bacteria causes syphilis. The Nobel Laureate is Julius Wagner-Jauregg who discovered a way to treat the lethal form of dementia that develops in the late stages of the disease.

There were only three people who got the right answer. All of them were ineligible. There is no winner this week!

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This is another one of those times when there's no "molecule" that provides a clue to a Nobel Laureate.

Your task is to identify this creature and the reason why it's important. There are three Nobel Laureates who might be associated with the creature but two of them have already been covered. The last name of the this week's Nobel Laureate does not begin with the letters "E" or "D". Who is it?

The first person to identify the "molecule" and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are seven ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska, Linda Zhang, a former student at the University of Toronto who will soon be on her way to graduate school at the University of Hong Kong and Kirill Zaslavsky, a Neuroscience student at the University of Toronto.

Dima, and Bill have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have two extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates. I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

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Monday's Molecule #144

 
This is another one of those times when there's no "molecule" that provides a clue to a Nobel Laureate.

Your task is to identify this creature and the reason why it's important. There are three Nobel Laureates who might be associated with the creature but two of them have already been covered. The last name of the this week's Nobel Laureate does not begin with the letters "E" or "D". Who is it?

The first person to identify the "molecule" and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are seven ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska, Linda Zhang, a former student at the University of Toronto who will soon be on her way to graduate school at the University of Hong Kong and Kirill Zaslavsky, a Neuroscience student at the University of Toronto.

Dima, and Bill have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have two extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates. I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

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Monday's Molecule #143: Winner

 
The creature is a nematode, specifically a Soybean cyst nematode. The relevant Nobel Prize was to Johannes Fibiger who got for it "discovering" that the nematode Spiroptera carcinoma causes cancer. This species is now called Gongylonema neoplasticum and it doesn't cause cancer. Oops!

The first person to get it right was Linda Zhang, a former student at the University of Toronto who will soon be on her way to graduate school at the University of Hong Kong. The undergraduate winner is Kirill Zaslavsky, a Neuroscience student at the University of Toronto.

Many others got the right answer. It was easier than I thought it would be.

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Sometimes it's almost impossible to find an image of a specific molecule that honors a Nobel Laureate. This is another one of those times.

This spectacular photograph shows a particular kind of creature and its egg. You need to identify the phylum to which this species belongs and then use that as a clue to come up with an appropriate Nobel Laureate. Your answer should include the particular species that is associated with the Nobel Prize as well as the Nobel Laureate. Be careful, I want the modern name of the species—not the old name that was used when the Nobel Prize was announced.

Here's a clue. The Nobel Prize was awarded in the last century, not the current one. Here's another clue, outside of the Nobel Peace prize and the mini-Nobel Prize in Economics, this award is probably the biggest mistake that the prize committee has ever made.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia, Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, and Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska.

Joshua, Dima, and Bill have all agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have three extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates. I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

---

[Photo Credit: Wikipedia]

Monday's Molecule #143

 
Sometimes it's almost impossible to find an image of a specific molecule that honors a Nobel Laureate. This is another one of those times.

This spectacular photograph shows a particular kind of creature and its egg. You need to identify the phylum to which this species belongs and then use that as a clue to come up with an appropriate Nobel Laureate. Your answer should include the particular species that is associated with the Nobel Prize as well as the Nobel Laureate. Be careful, I want the modern name of the species—not the old name that was used when the Nobel Prize was announced.

Here's a clue. The Nobel Prize was awarded in the last century, not the current one. Here's another clue, outside of the Nobel Peace prize and the mini-Nobel Prize in Economics, this award is probably the biggest mistake that the prize committee has ever made.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia, Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, and Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska.

Joshua, Dima, and Bill have all agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have three extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates. I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

---

[Photo Credit: Wikipedia]

Monday's Molecule #142: Winner

 
The diagram should remind you of the cell cycle and the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Since I already covered Tim Hunt and Paul Nurse, this must be about Lee Hartwell. That means the molecule must be "start" or CDC28.

The winner is Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska. He has agreed to donate his free lunch to an undergraduate. Unfortunately, there weren't any undergraduate who got the right answer this week so I still have three free lunches to give away.

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Sometimes it's almost impossible to find an image of a specific molecule that honors a Nobel Laureate. This is one of those times.

The diagram provides all the clues necessary to identify an important process and then to identify a particular molecule associated with this week's Nobel Laureate.

You must name the molecule and the Nobel Laureate. Be careful 'cause it's easy to make a mistake and name someone who has already been the subject of a Monday's Molecule.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are only six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Frank Schmidt of the University of Missouri, Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia, Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Alex Ling of the University of Toronto.

Joshua and Dima have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have two extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates so I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

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Nobel Laureates: Archer Martin and Richard Synge

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1952.

"for their invention of partition chromatography"




Archer John Porter Martin (1910 - 2002) and Richard Laurence Millington Synge (1914 - 1994) won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on separating substances by partition chromatography.

The technique they developed was called paper chromatography but today there are many other, more effective, versions of partition chromatography. The example shown below is from Monday's Molecule #134 and it's taken from an article on paper chromatography.

In this example, a soluble extract of pigments from plant leaves is spotted at the bottom of a piece of paper and the end with the sample is placed in a suitable solvent such as a mixture of acetone and ether. The solvent rises up the paper by capillary action taking the dissolved pigments with it. The trick is to choose a solvent mixture where the pigments (or other compounds) are differentially soluble so they migrate at different rates and separate on the paper.

The theory behind partition chromatography is complex. It used to be part of graduate courses in biochemistry.

I still remember taking Chemistry 542 back in 1969 and learning about Craig's ideas of counter-current distribution. We even covered the Martin & Synge 1941 paper in the Biochemical Journal (Biochem J. 35:1358). I still have my notes.

And I still get anxious whenever I hear the words "theoretical plates."

Martin & Synge, and others, developed techniques for separating amino acids and this was the basis of the sequencing technology employed by Fred Sanger for determining the amino acid sequence of insulin.

Back in 1952 it must have seemed unusual to be awarding a Nobel prize for chromatography. That's why the first part of the Presentation Speech explains why the discovery is important.

THEME:
Nobel Laureates

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen.

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded for the discovery of a method for the separation of substances from complicated mixtures.

How can it happen, one may ask, that something apparently so commonplace as a separation method should be rewarded by a Nobel Prize? The answer is that from the very beginnings of chemistry until our own time, methods for separating substances have occupied a key position in this science. Even today, in Holland, chemistry is called "Scheikunde", or "the art of separation", and even today some of chemistry's most important advances are linked to the invention of new methods for separating various substances.

Chemistry today is to a large extent concentrated upon the study of natural products, which are obtained from animals, plants, or even bacteria and other microorganisms. A starting material of this type contains a great number of widely varied substances, some simple, others more complicated. The first thing the chemist must do is to isolate the substances he is interested in from the material and prepare them in a pure state. The next step is, if possible, to identify these substances and find out what they consist of and how they are built up from simple constituents.

The first problem, the isolation, can indeed be difficult, as it is often a matter of preparing in a pure state substances which constitute only an extremely small fraction of the starting material and which have the disagreeable tendency of, so to speak, disappearing between one's fingers when one tries to get hold of them. It is here that Martin and Synge's method has enjoyed great success, especially in what is perhaps its most important form, and is called filter-paper chromatography.

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The images of the Nobel Prize medals are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation (© The Nobel Foundation). They are used here, with permission, for educational purposes only.

Monday's Molecule #142

 
Sometimes it's almost impossible to find an image of a specific molecule that honors a Nobel Laureate. This is one of those times.

The diagram provides all the clues necessary to identify an important process and then to identify a particular molecule associated with this week's Nobel Laureate.

You must name the molecule and the Nobel Laureate. Be careful 'cause it's easy to make a mistake and name someone who has already been the subject of a Monday's Molecule.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are only six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Frank Schmidt of the University of Missouri, Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia, Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Alex Ling of the University of Toronto.

Joshua and Dima have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have two extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates so I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

---

Are You Sexually Attracted to Male Musk Deer?

 
The other day I had to get up and move to new seat on the subway. The cause of my discomfort was a young woman who reeked of musk—the scent that male musk deer (Moschus moschiferus) use to attract females. I don't know why this woman wanted attention from female musk deer but I was pretty sure she wasn't going to find any on the subway.

The main scent is due to muscone [see Monday's Molecule #127] and nowadays the muscone used in perfumes is completely artificial. But that wasn't always the case. Musk originally came from the scent glands of Asian musk deer [MUSK An Essay].

Only the mature male Moschus produces musk. The substance occurs in only one location on the deer's body: on its abdomen, just in front of its penis, is a hairy pouch known as the musk gland. This sac is about the size of a golf ball. It is composed of several layers of skin, with two openings immediately above the animal's urethra.

In the early summer, unripe liquid musk drains into the gland from the surrounding tissues, and is stored there for some weeks or months. During the course of this time, the musk - 30 grams of it or so - "matures" into a granular, waxy, reddish-brown substance with an extremely potent and familiar smell.

When the musk has ripened - shortly before the autumn rutting season - the deer begin to discharge it mixed with their urine, apparently to mark their territory and attract females. (This behavior is familiar to anyone who has come in contact with a tomcat that "sprays.") Even in winter, male musk deer have been reported to leave behind fragrant red snow, rather than yellow.

I'm told that humans of both sexes get turned on by this smell. If so, the woman on the subway is not only going to attract female musk deer but she's also going to get a lot of attention from both men and women of a different species. I guess it's a good thing that I freed up the seat next to her.

There ought to be rules about perfume, When a man or a woman is wearing too much, they should be told to go home and take a shower—with lots of unscented soap.

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Monday's Molecule #141: Winner

 
The molecule is cholic acid, which usually exists as sodium cholate. It's one of the major bile acids in mammals. The bile acids help solubilize lipids during digestion.

The Nobel Laureate is Heinrich Otto Wieland who received the prize for his work on the structure and function of bile acids.

This week's winner is Alex Ling of the University of Toronto. There were quite a few people who got the right answer and this was a surprise to me. Lipids are not the kind of molecules that excite me and I was not expecting that so many of you would recognize cholic acid.

There were winners from four continents. I think that's a first. Readers in Africa and South America are going to have to get try harder if we're ever going to set a six continent record. (As far as I know, there are no Sandwalk readers in Antarctica.

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Identify this molecule. Be as specific as possible. Briefly describe what it does.

There's a Nobel Prize connected to this molecule. The prize was for identifying it and working out its structure, and the structure of many derivatives.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are only six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Ben Morgan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Frank Schmidt of the University of Missouri, Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia, Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, and Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Joshua and Dima have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have two extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates so I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

---

Monday's Molecule #141

 
Identify this molecule. Be as specific as possible. Briefly describe what it does.

There's a Nobel Prize connected to this molecule. The prize was for identifying it and working out its structure, and the structure of many derivatives.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are only six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Ben Morgan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Frank Schmidt of the University of Missouri, Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia, Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, and Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Joshua and Dima have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have two extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates so I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

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Monday's Molecule #140: Winner

 
The molecule is the potassium ion channel from rat brain cells. Roderick MacKinnon solved this structure and he got the Nobel Prize in 2003 for his work on the structure and function of the potassiunm ion channel [see Nobel Laureat: Roderick MacKinnon]

The Nobel Laureates for this week are Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann for working out a technique to measure the voltage changes during ion transport.

The winner is Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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Identify this molecule. Be as specific as possible. Briefly describe what it does

There's a Nobel Prize indirectly connected to this molecule. The prize was for developing a technique that could be used to study the function of molecules like this one.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are only five ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Ben Morgan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Frank Schmidt of the University of Missouri, Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia, Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, and Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto.

Frank and Joshua have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have an extra free lunch for a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

---

[Image Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory]

Monday's Molecular #140

 
Identify this molecule. Be as specific as possible. Briefly describe what it does

There's a Nobel Prize indirectly connected to this molecule. The prize was for developing a technique that could be used to study the function of molecules like this one.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are only five ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Ben Morgan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Frank Schmidt of the University of Missouri, Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia, Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, and Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto.

Frank and Joshua have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have an extra free lunch for a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

---

[Image Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory]

Monday's Molecule #139

 
The molecule is 4-sulfonamide-2',4'-diaminobenzol or "Prontosil," a potent antibiotic. Gerhard Domagk received the Nobel Prize for developing Prontosil as a treatment against bacterial infections.

The overall winner is Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany. The undergraduate winner is Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto.

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Name this molecule. The common name will do. Briefly describe what it does.

There's a Nobel Prize directly connected to this molecule. If you can name the molecule then you can find the Nobel Laureate(s).

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are only four ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Philip Johnson of the University of Toronto, Ben Morgan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Frank Schmidt of the University of Missouri and Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia.

Frank and Joshua have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have an extra free lunch for a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

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Monday's Molecule #138: Winner

 
The purple molecule is cyclin bound to phospho-cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) (yellow) and kinase-associated phosphatase (KAP) (blue). The Nobel Laureate is Tim Hunt.

There were lots of correct answers from Asia and Europe this time around but also a few from North America.

This week's winner is Joshua Johnson of Victoria University in Australia. The posting time was convenient for Australians since his email message was sent at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. There wasn't an undergraduate winner this week so I'll carry over the undergraduate prize for next week's molecule.

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This is the earliest posting of a Monday's Molecule. It should make the contest open to a whole new category of Sandwalk readers, especially those in Europe who will see it long before the readers in North America are awake.

It will also work for Asian readers and a few North and South Americans who are up very late at night. (Note to the latter group: get a life! )

The molecule is a compex of three different proteins. One of them—the yellow one—has already been featured as a Monday's Molecule last April. This time I want you to identify the purple molecule. It was first identified and characterized in the organism shown below then subsequently found in lots of other species.

The Nobel Laureate from last April shared the prize with the person who discovered today's molecule. Name that Nobel Laureate.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are only three ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Philip Johnson of the University of Toronto, Ben Morgan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Frank Schmidt of the University of Missouri.

Frank has agreed to donate his free lunch to a deserving undergraduate. Consequently, I have an extra free lunch for a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

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Monday's Molecule #138

 
This is the earliest posting of a Monday's Molecule. It should make the contest open to a whole new category of Sandwalk readers, especially those in Europe who will see it long before the readers in North America are awake.

It will also work for Asian readers and a few North and South Americans who are up very late at night. (Note to the latter group: get a life! )

The molecule is a compex of three different proteins. One of them—the yellow one—has already been featured as a Monday's Molecule last April. This time I want you to identify the purple molecule. It was first identified and characterized in the organism shown below then subsequently found in lots of other species.

The Nobel Laureate from last April shared the prize with the person who discovered today's molecule. Name that Nobel Laureate.

The first person to identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are only three ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Philip Johnson of the University of Toronto, Ben Morgan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Frank Schmidt of the University of Missouri.

Frank has agreed to donate his free lunch to a deserving undergraduate. Consequently, I have an extra free lunch for a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

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Nobel Laureate: Ivan Pavlov

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1904

"in recognition of his work on the physiology of digestion, through which knowledge on vital aspects of the subject has been transformed and enlarged"

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849 - 1936) (Иван Петрович Павлов) won the Noble Prize in 1904 for his contribution to understanding the physiology and biochemistry of digestion. Part of his contribution was the discovery that some of the digestion enzymes needed to be activated before they could work in the stomach [Monday's Molecule #133].

Pavlov is famous for his work with dogs. Most people know of his studies on conditioned reflexes where he was able to show that the mere anticipation of food caused dogs to salivate. He is famous as one of the founders of modern psychology but the Nobel Prize was for a different study where he examined the stomach secretions of dogs by redirecting secretory ducts to the exterior where the secretions could be collected and analyzed. Pavlov was actually more of a biochemist than a psychologist!

Pavlov had a large, well-equipped lab with many workers. In that sense he was much more of a professional scientist than many of the other biological scientists of the late nineteenth century. Pasteur was another example. Many others, like Charles Darwin, worked alone and didn't seek out students.

The knowledge gained from his studies on digestion had no practical application in medicine. They simply advanced our understanding of how our bodies work. In presenting the Nobel Prize the presenter, Count K.A.H. Mörner, took pains to make this point clear and to pronounce it a good thing. Science for the sake of knowledge.

One gets the impression that the audience at the award ceremonies needed to hear that.

Here's part of the Presentation Speech that describes Pavlov's contribution.

THEME:
Nobel Laureates

In the early days opinions on the course of digestion were speculations as to what was termed as «cooking» or «grinding» in the stomach etc. So long as the digestive processes could not be observed or investigated directly in the stomach no real knowledge could be obtained. An accident turned physiological research in this field in a direction which has later become very important. In the 1820's a young man sustained a gunshot wound in the stomach and developed a gastric fistula which to some extent permitted the gastric processes to be studied. Observations were carried out on this man by the American physician W. Beaumont. This accidental path of investigation, allowing actual observation of processes taking place in the digestive tract, was later followed by many workers using animals. Technique is an important factor in such experiments and has been perfected in a masterly way by Pavlov, whose animals remain in good health, without any injury to the function of their digestive tract, permitting observation and systematic investigation over an almost unlimited period.

These methods for the study of the physiology of digestion established by Pavlov have been taken up by various physiological institutions, but above all much important work was performed in his own laboratory. From this has followed a far-reaching transformation of our knowledge in this field which has also been enriched by new fundamental facts.

The following may be mentioned as an illustration.

The digestive canal can be influenced in various ways by the nervous system. When we remember that the nervous system can induce not only the secretory processes as well as the movements of various parts of the system, but also can bring such processes to a standstill, that it controls the blood supply to these organs and that sensory nerves arise from them, we can get an idea of the complexity one encounters. The complications become still greater when it is realised that we must take into account not only nervous pathways having their origin in the brain or the spinal cord, but also the sympathetic nervous system, and that we have further to pay attention to the interdependence between the different parts of the digestive system through the nerves, so that variations in the behaviour of one may affect that in other organs.

It is in the nature of things that cognition of the scope and character of the functional interdependence of the nervous system and the digestive organs is of great importance to the knowledge of the physiology of these organs. It is also clear that one can only hope that answers to these complicated questions will advance step by step by much research. In this respect Pavlov has acquired very great merit. He has revealed new points of view and has fruitfully stimulated the solution of these problems, and through his methods has made it possible to reach conclusive analysis of them.

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The images of the Nobel Prize medals are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation (© The Nobel Foundation). They are used here, with permission, for educational purposes only.

[Photo Credit: Pasteur [Hulton Archive/Getty Images]