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In this study, the authors investigate the antibacterial efficacy of penicillin G and its analogs amoxicillin, carbenicillin, piperacillin, cloxacillin, and ampicillin, against four species of bacteria. Results showed that all six penicillin-type antibiotics inhibit Staphylococcus epidermidis, Escherichia coli, and Neisseria sicca with varying degrees of efficacy but exhibited no inhibition against Bacillus cereus. Penicillin G had the greatest broad-spectrum antibacterial activity with a high radius of inhibition against S. epidermidis, E. coli, and N. sicca.

Wafers, essential in microchip production, can develop issues like leveling problems and wafer slip due to the formation of silanol bonds on their backside, which attract silica particles and oil. Authors tested addressing this issue with a coating of [acetoxy(polyethyleneoxy)propyl]triethoxysilane (APTS) applied to the wafer’s backside, preventing particle binding and oil adherence.

Here, through protein-ligand docking, the authors investigated the effect of the interaction of emodin with serine/threonine kinases, a subclass of kinases that is overexpressed in many cancers, which is implicated in phosphorylation cascades. Through molecular dynamics theyfound that emodin forms favorable interactions with chitosan and chitosan PEG (polyethylene glycol) copolymers, which could aid in loading drugs into nanoparticles (NPs) for targeted delivery to cancerous tissue. Both polymers demonstrated reasonable entrapment efficiencies, which encourages experimental exploration of emodin through targeted drug delivery vehicles and their anticancer activity.

Coronary artery bypass grafts are a common technique to treat coronary heart disease. The authors compared the efficacy of suturing and stapling techniques using an artificial heart pump and silicone tubing and found that suturing, while more time and skill intensive, held pressure in the tubing better than stapling.

Here, seeking to address the growing threat of multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDR). the authors used in silico virtual screening to target MDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa. They considered a key protein in its biosynthesis and virtually screened 20,000 candidates and 30 derivatives of brequinar. In the end, they identified a possible candidate with the highest degree of potential to inhibit the pathogen's lipid A synthesis.

The authors looked at four members of the tetracycline antibiotic family/class against four different species of bacteria.

Here, recognizing the need to improve the efficiency of the conversion of solar energy to electrical energy, the authors used MATLAB to mathematically simulate a multi-layered thin film with an without an antireflective coating. They found that the use of alternating ZnO-SiO₂ multilayers enhanced the transmission of light into the solar cell, increasing its efficiency and reducing the reflectivity of the Si-Air interface.

In this study, the authors test whether providing a larger dataset of glass transition temperatures (T_g) to train the machine-learning platform Polymer Genome would improve its accuracy. Polymer Genome is a machine learning based data-driven informatics platform for polymer property prediction and T_g is one property needed to design new polymers in silico. They found that training the model with their larger, curated dataset improved the algorithm's T_g, providing valuable improvements to this useful platform.

The authors looked at whether they could induce the formation of new neurons from astrocytes via the upregulation of a microRNA (miR-124a). They found that upregulation of miR-124a started transdifferentiation of neurons, but was not enough to lead to full conversion of astrocytes to neurons.

Levy & Levy tackle the optimization of the coronary artery bypass graft, a life-saving surgical technique that treats artery blockage due to coronary heart disease. The authors develop a novel auto-suturing method that saves time, allows for an increased number of sutures, and improves graft quality over hand suturing. The authors also show that increasing the number of sutures from four to five with their new method significantly improves graft quality. These promising findings may help improve outcomes for patients undergoing surgery to treat coronary heart disease.