Welcome to the first 2011 issue of Australian Journal of Chemistry, in this the International Year of Chemistry. We are planning a series of exciting Research Fronts throughout 2011 and start in this January issue with Biophysical Chemistry.

Physical chemists experience satisfaction when they're able to describe their results in mathematical form. Confronted by the complexity of biological systems, though, many physical chemists would run a hundred miles. However, the physical chemical approach has great potential for delivering fundamental information necessary for a deep understanding of biological systems.

Chemical kinetics underwent a revolution in the 1950–60s when Manfred Eigen developed relaxation kinetic techniques. Since then, computing power has increased astronomically. Some of the approximations traditionally used in the analysis of relaxation kinetic data are, therefore, no longer an absolute necessity.

The implementation of FT-IR spectroscopy to the structural and functional study of membrane proteins offers complementary information to NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography. Here, we provide an introduction to the principles of time-resolved FT-IR spectroscopy and we illustrate its role in the elucidation of the mechanism of two retinylidene proteins.

From the start of a possible prebiotic chemistry >4–3.8 × 10⁹ years ago to the presence of cells with an ATP-producing metabolism, it seems not more than 300 to 400 million years have passed. New findings from molecules, cells, and photosynthesis-related-fossils indicate life emerged earlier in the Earth's history than previously thought.

Femtosecond fluorescence upconversion is used to reveal that curcumin undergoes excited-state intramolecular hydrogen atom transfer and it plays a major role in the photophysics of curcumin in polar organic solvents and micellar systems. This work aims at elucidating the photodynamic therapy properties of curcumin.

Organic cation transporter OCT2 was expressed in Chinese hamster ovary and insect cells and analyzed using solid supported membranes-based electrophysiology. The assay is shown to be of high quality and can be performed in an automatic manner which proves its potential for rapid screening of drug candidates for organic cation transporters.

Ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) is emerging as an important biophysical technique for the structural analysis of proteins and their assemblies. Herein, IM-MS provides mechanistic insight into the inhibitory effects of EGCG on alpha synuclein fibril formation. We show EGCG binding prevents conformational collapse associated with alpha-synuclein aggregation, and in turn, decreases the formation of fibrillar species.

Although the resolution of a light microscope is fundamentally limited by diffraction, in the past decade several new techniques have been developed that can overcome this limit, many of them based on the recently discovered photoswitchable fluorophores. A brief overview of these techniques is given.

Cubosomes are an attractive option for development of cell-free biosensors containing multiple protein or glycolipid receptors. In this article we present a novel strategy toward the creation of a cubosome-based biosensing platform by specifically tethering cubosomes to surfaces with one receptor, then assessing their sensing performance via a second receptor.

The synthesis and characterization of a valinomycin derivative, a depsipepdide that has been functionalized to serve as a redox probe in a lipid bilayer, is presented. In addition, the influence of the molecular structure of a tethered bilayer lipid membrane on its ability to host proteins is discussed.

The Petasis three-component coupling reaction was employed to generate functionalized homoarylalanine derivatives. The reactions were shown to proceed in high yield but low selectivity regardless of the nature of the substituent on the styrenylboronic acid component, with anomalies in the stereoselectivities traced to the source of the organoboronic acid. Asymmetric dihydroxylation of the unsaturated amino acid derivatives enables a highly efficient route to dihydroxyhomoarylalanine derivatives.

Three new copper oxalato pyrazole complex templated solids based on Anderson-Evans polyoxomolybdate were synthesized. Crystal packing analyses were interpreted in terms of a mechanistic approach describing supramolecular aggregation between chemically reasonable molecules (tectons). The oxalate molecules are generated in situ possibly through reductive coupling of dissolved carbon dioxide with copper pyrazole units.

The highly electron-deficient cyanocarbons tetracyanoethene (tcne) and, to a lesser extent, tetracyanoquinodimethane (tcnq), display a fascinating chemistry with transition metal substrates. This review describes the [2 + 2]-cycloadditions of the cyanocarbons with alkynyl- or poly–ynyl–metal complexes, which have been extensively studied by the author's group. These reactions proceed via polar adducts to give σ-cyclobutenyl complexes, which then undergo facile ring-opening (retro-electrocyclic) reactions to form the corresponding butadienyl derivatives. In some cases, further reactions can occur by displacement of weakly bound ligands from the metal centre.

Six d¹⁰ metal–organic complexes with multipyridine ligands have been synthesized. Fluorescence analysis of 1–6 in the solid state is investigated at both room temperature and 10 K. In organic solvents, 1–6 exhibit various luminescences with strong solvent effects.

Using Gd-160, the structure of the cubic C-type phase of Gd₂O₃ has been refined from high-resolution powder neutron diffraction data.

Surfaces than can switch their properties in response to external stimuli are of fundamental as well as technological interest. Thin films generated by the electrochemical reduction of diazonium cations were found to reorganize in response to the polarity and pH of the surrounding medium.