SBLab

Nature is so mysterious! Announcing that water droplets in the air emit polluting gases (NOx) by spontaneously fixing molecular nitrogen at the air-water interface. The purer the water, the more polluting it becomes for emitting these gases. After a year of struggling to get this work published, it has finally been selected to be featured as a free cover article in the forthcoming issue of Analytical Chemistry.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.analchem.4c00371

Congratulations to Supratim on successfully defending his PhD thesis and his groundbreaking work on imaging mass spectrometry for disease diagnosis, a unique and unprecedented accomplishment in India. This is a significant milestone and a testament to his hard work, dedication, and expertise in the field. Supratim, your PhD defense was impressive, and we have no doubt that you will continue to excel in your future endeavors.

Happy to see our work recognized. Thanks to SBLab group and IISER TIRUPATI fraternity for this.

https://www.thieme.de/en/thieme-chemistry/thieme-chemistry-journals-awardees-107362.htm

We examined the human hippocampus to reveal the metabolic dysregulation in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Mass Spectrometric Imaging of Anionic Phospholipids Desorbed from Human Hippocampal Sections: Discrimination between Temporal and Nontemporal Lobe Epilepsies Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is one of the most common neurological disorders, often accompanied by hippocampal sclerosis. The molecular processes underlying this epileptogenesis are poorly understood. To examine the lipid profile, 39 fresh frozen sections of the human hippocampus obtained from epil...

This is an international collaboration with Prof. Jason Lam.

Carbocation Mechanism Revelation of Molecular Iodine-Mediated Dehydrogenative Aromatization of Substituted Cyclic Ketones to Phenols Dehydrogenative aromatization (DA) of cyclic ketones is central to the development of functionalized aromatic precursors and hydrogen transfer–related technologies. Traditional DA strategies require precious metals with oxidants and are typically performed at high temperatures (100–150 °C) to o...

Often rewards outweigh awards - this is what they talked about us several months back but we did not notice.

New Study Reveals Promising Biomarkers for Rapid Breast Cancer Diagnosis Using Mass Spectrometry Imaging Researchers have discovered diacylglycerols as potent biomarkers for the rapid diagnosis of breast cancer, using mass spectrometry imaging. This breakthrough study offers new possibilities for improved intraoperative assessment and personalized treatment strategies.

Here is Supratim, who just won the best poster award at INST Mohali (TENS-2023 conference). Congratulations to him!

Congratulations to Abhijit once again for securing the ACS best poster award at P. C. Ray Memorial International Conference, Presidency University, West Bengal.

New addition to SBLab. We welcome Sourik Chakrabarti, who joined our group in August 2023 for his PhD. Sourik did his M.Sc. from IIEST Shibpur, West Bengal.

One may wonder to know that a huge electric field exists at the surface of water microdroplet that can selectively break the phenolic C-O bond, and thus spontaneously transforms phenol to phenyl cation at the air-water interface (no catalyst is needed), which is seeming impossible in bulk (in a reaction vial). Congratulations to Abhijit Nandy and Anubhav Kumar for documenting such wonderful observation and green chemistry.

Spontaneous Generation of Aryl Carbocations from Phenols in Aqueous Microdroplets: Aromatic SN1 Reactions at the Air–Water Interface Although phenol is stable in bulk water, we report an exceptional phenomenon in which phenol is spontaneously transformed into a phenyl carbocation (Ph+) in water microdroplets. The high electric field at the air–water interface is proposed to break the phenolic Csp2–OH bond, forming Ph+, which ...

Congratulations to Abhijit Nandy for the ACS best poster award at TFCS-2023 (NIT Trichy).

Congratulations to Anubhav Kumar for the poster award at TFCS-2023 (NIT Trichy).

Supratim Mondal - on his presynopsis seminar. Supratim is the first student of SBLab joined in 2018. It was a wonderful talk he delivered on 12th July 2023.

Read the interview (The IJMS Young Scientist Feature)

www.sblab.info

We conducted this study on 73 breast cancer patients who underwent surgery at SVIMS Tirupati. Thanks to the team for the continuous efforts invested in this project over the last five years. This work is dedicated to the loving memory of Dr. Yeswanth Sthanikam. We could achieve this without him.

Mass Spectrometry Imaging of Lumpectomy Specimens Deciphers Diacylglycerols as Potent Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Breast Cancer Detecting breast tumor markers with a fast turnaround time from frozen sections should foster intraoperative histopathology in breast-conserving surgery, reducing the need for a second operation. Hence, rapid label-free discrimination of the spatially resolved molecular makeup between cancer and adj...

It’s Orbitrap Exploris 120 - recently arrived

A 3D printer recently installed in our lab. We started making parts for our custom-built ion sources.

Efficient Desorption and Capture of Reactive Carbocations from Positively Charged Glass Surface Bombarded with High-Speed Water Microdroplets Recent studies with desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) revealed that reactive carbocations could be captured and stabilized in water microdroplets to probe their intermediacy in chemical reactions. Here, we demonstrate how the amine functionalization (chemical modificatio...

On the stability of carbocation in water microdroplets Air-water system represents a ubiquitous interface that appears with a unique polar environment. Performing and studying chemistry at this interface i…

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.2c00768

Rapid Molecular Evaluation of Human Kidney Tissue Sections by In Situ Mass Spectrometry and Machine Learning to Classify the Nephrotic Syndrome Nephrotic syndrome (NS) is classified based on morphological changes of glomeruli in biopsied kidney tissues evaluated by time-consuming microscopy methods. In contrast, we employed desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) directly on renal biopsy specimens obtained from 37 NS....

At IIT Madras

Anubhav receiving best poster award. Congratulations to Anubhav.

SBLab congratulates Abhijit Nandy on his selection as a Prime Minister's Research Fellow (PMRF). Wish him success in all his future endeavors.

We tame water droplets to capture and stabilize reactive carbanions for their real-time detection.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.2c01577

Capturing Reactive Carbanions by Microdroplets Carbanions appear in many organic or biological reactions as fleeting intermediates, prohibiting direct observation or spectroscopic measurement. An aqueous environment is known to rapidly annihilate a carbanion species, reducing its lifetime to as short as picoseconds. We report that aqueous microd...