Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is extremely prevalent and diverse. It is the most commonly encountered heterogeneous endocrine disorder in premenopausal (reproductive age) women worldwide.^[1] Studies shows that it affects 5-10% of this population.^[2] It is a characteristic syndrome of ovarian dysfunction associated with hyperandrogenism, chronic anovulation, endometrial hyperplasia and significant morbidity. Many other crucial body systems are also affected causing hirsutism, infertility, alopecia, menstrual irregularities and obesity.^[3] The aetiology of this syndrome is still debatable. Although it is found that PCOS is common among middle and high-income urban population rather than in the rural population.^[5]The women with PCOS have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance at an early stage.^[4]Insulin resistance is the key feature of PCOS and it is characterised by hyperinsulinemia. Obese women are at a higher risk of developing insulin resistance than normal-weight women and have higher hyperandrogenism.^[6]

The growth factor receptor-bound protein-2 (GRB2) is an adapter protein and is essential for cellular functions. It can either promote or block the cellular transformation and proliferation depending upon its activation and inhibition respectively. It plays a critical role in linking cell surface growth receptors (EGFR) and the Ras signalling pathway.^[7]

It is very crucial to curb the overexpression of the protein by using a potent ligand to activate essential cellular functions. It is used to comprehend the strength of association and the binding affinity between the appropriate ligands and the target binding site. This helps to develop more efficient drug candidates which would essentially help in the curing of the syndrome. The aim of the present investigation is to identify a potential GRB2 inhibitor towards the clinical treatment of Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) using various molecular docking^[8-15] and virtual screening approaches^[16-28].

Among the greatest difficulties of Biology teachers who teach in high school is the adequacy of alternative teaching resources to the teaching process, in order to facilitate mediation and understanding of the content covered. The absence of didactic resources and difficulties in developing low-cost strategies, which integrate the contents covered and contextualize them within problems in which the student must seek to solve, leaves the teaching and learning process deficient. Within this context, this study aimed to apply and evaluate two practical classes in a public school in the municipality of Jaciara-MT. The evaluation was carried out using questionnaires about the contents involved in the classes, applied before and after the practical classes. It was observed that most of the students involved in the study showed greater mastery over the contents, after the practical classes.

Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) have found prominence in different fields such as medicine, catalysis, nanoelectronics, textile field, pollution and water treatment due to their unique attributes. Applications of AgNP are increasing rapidly in the medical purpose including drug delivery, treatment, diagnosis, medical device coating. Various chemical and physical methods are used to synthesize the AgNP conventionally. However, these processes are expensive and also have side effects. To solve these problems by modification in synthesis process for safer and more efficiency, synthesis of biogenic AgNP from plant extract, known as Green Nanotechnology, have come to play a very crucial role, In this study, we have reported the green synthesis of AgNP using Ocimum sanctum (Tulsi) leaf extract, which act as reducing agent as well as capping agent. Synthesized AgNPs were characterized and their antibacterial and anticancer activities were observed. The development of brown color by the addition of Tulsi signifies the formation of silver nanoparticles. UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy, XRD and zeta potential were applied to estimate the quantitative formation of silver nanoparticles. FTIR analysis was used to reveal that the AgNPs were stabilized by eugenols, terpenes, and other aromatic compounds present in the leaf extract. The antimicrobial and anticancer properties of AgNPs were assessed by various in vitro cellular assays. Our present study confirms that AgNP can be used as a dual therapeutic option for combating pathogenic microbial strains as well as hepatocellular cancer.

Welcome to the MODEC2020 workshop. This is Amazon State University's (UEA) FIFTH workshop (30 Jan 2020–30 Jan 2021), devoted to the promotion and application of the Multidisciplinary Sciences to the development of natural products and agro-industrial processes in Ecuadorian Amazon regions. This includes the application of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for data analysis and computational model including the fields of Agro-industrial Engineering, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology, Veterinary Medicine, and/or Environmental Sciences, etc. We invite you to visit the official web of the workshop: https://mol2net-06.sciforum.net/

This study describes a new chemometric tool for the analysis of chromatographic data: the Superposing Significant Interaction Rules (SSIR) is a variable selector coming from QSAR field that directly analyses the raw internal data coming from the chromatographic software. This allowed the identification of relevant volatile compounds in cork (treated and not treated samples in the industry) extracted by untargeted HS-SPME in a particular case for which traditional treatments (PCA, Discriminant Analysis) did not produced relevant results. The procedure has revealed the presence of compounds which are increased in the case of treated samples. The obtained classificatory model is robust, as it passed satisfactorily cross-validation tests (96% or more in performance for leave-one-out processes). This is the first time SSIR procedure is applied for the analysis of chromatographic information.

Alginates are outstanding biomaterials due to their excellent biocompatibility, renewability, biodegradability and cost-effectiveness in comparison with other biopolymers. Nevertheless, in general, these hydrogels have poor mechanical performance that limit their potential applications in biomedical areas such as skin tissue engineering and wound healing. In this regard, the study follows an enhanced engineering route to synthesized alginate-based films reinforced with different amounts (0, 0.1, 0.5, 1 and 2% w/w) of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) and characterize their physical and biological behavior. The results of this study showed that these composite materials possess similar biological properties to neat alginate hydrogels. Thus, none of the synthesized composite materials showed any cytotoxic effect and no cell adhesion was observed on the films. Water sorption at the human temperature (about 37°C) did not suffer substantial changes with the addition of CNFs into the polymer matrix. The dynamic mechanical and tensile/compressive performance of calcium alginate were significantly enhanced with the incorporation of even a very low amount of CNFs. Thus, the tensile and compression modulus of the calcium alginate films in the dry and hydrated state increases up to three and six times, respectively, with the load of 2% w/w CNFs. Furthermore, the composite biomaterials reinforced with the lowest CNFs amount have the advantage of possessing more transparency and lower production costs.

Carbon nanoparticles are known because of their highly fluorescent property. Thus, among several different types of nanoparticles, carbon nanoparticles have great potential of bio imaging applications. Highly fluorescent crystalline carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) have been synthesized in a facile, rapid method which involves microwave irradiation of sucrose with phosphoric acid at 100 W for 4 mins. Hence this method is fleet and cost effective for large scale applications. Physical characterization of synthesized CNPs was done by DLS and Zeta potential, Hydrodynamic size of CNPs as measured by DLS was 281.2 d.nm. The surface charge of carbon nanoparticles was found to be -39.7 mV. These CNPs have green fluorescence under UV exposure. CNPs enter into cell without any further modification and show their efficiency as fluorescence based cell imaging application. Further, we have explored the antibacterial property of carbon nanoparticles by Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC).

The currently surging SARS-COV-2 (or CoVID-19) is challenging the public health authorities worldwide. As of now there is no approved vaccine or drug available for the control of the viral disease. Therefore, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are being used around the world to manage the spread of CoVID-19. In this article we used a computer-assisted vaccine design (CAVD) approach to develop a set of most probable peptide vaccine candidates which can be tested for their efficacy by wet lab experiments.

Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness that can spread from person to person. The virus that causes COVID-19 is a novel corona virus that was first identified during an investigation into an outbreak in Wuhan, China.

COVID-19 is spreading from person to person in almost all the countries worldwide. Risk of infection with COVID-19 is higher for people who are close contacts of someone known to have COVID-19, for example healthcare workers, or household members. Other people at higher risk for infection are those who live in or have recently been in an area with ongoing spread of COVID-19. Infection from corona virus can be characterised by common symptoms such as fever, cough and fatigue, while other symptoms may include sputum production, headache and pneumonia.

The virus that causes COVID-19 probably emerged from an animal source, but is now spreading in human beings. The virus is thought to spread mainly between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet) through respiratory droplets produced mainly when an infected person coughs or sneezes. It may also possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that is infected from virus and after that touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

The particles within the nanoregime are quite smaller (100- 10,000 times) than human cells but are comparable to that of biomolecules like enzymes and receptors. The nanoparticles smaller than 50 nm can easily pervade into most cells, and those particles smaller than 20 nm can easily escape into the circulation through the blood vessels. Nanoparticles are quite conducive to be fabricated appropriately to serve as a device/vehicles of important therapeutic genes or drugs specifically to the cancer cells avoiding any hazardous effects on the normal cells. This review encompasses the recent investigations employing nanocarriers like liposomes, micelles, carbon nanotubes, dendrimers, nanoshells that has been developed with positive results.The cancer therapeutic agents like Doxorubicin, Paclitaxel, Cystatin ,Small interfering RNA(SiRNAs) are encapsulated within these nanocarriers through the processes of entrapping, covalent binding, encapsulation or adsorption. Furthermore these nanoparticles were conjugated with cancer specific targetic ligands like Folic acid, Monoclonal antibody,Luteinising hormone releasing hormone(LHRH)peptide,etc which enable them to successfully deliver the therapeutic agents to the cancerous cells. Henceforth the development of these smart nanodevices will undoubtedly pave the way for coming up with future novel therapeutic strategies for combating the malignant cells circumventing any adverse side effects on the normal cells.