Biochemical Society

Notably, the superior cardiac branch on both sides remained distinct near the typical vagus nerve stimulation cuff site, highlighting potential for targeted cardiac neuromodulation potentially relevant to conditions including myocardial infarction, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation. These findings advance understanding of human vagus nerve organization and support the design of selective stimulation strategies for precise autonomic regulation.

Throughout 2025, the Biochemical Society hosted students from across the UK to work on projects in different areas of the Society’s work. The Society hosted a Professional Internships for PhD Students placement in the Conferences and Events team, two students who were awarded Summer Vacation Studentships, and a student on the Micro-Placement Programme at City University of London.

Halophiles attract increasing attention to serve as sustainable industrial hosts for prolonged continuous processes or in open-vat fermentations owing to the reduced risk of contamination enabled by high salt concentration in the medium. Despite growing interest, their application in large-scale manufacturing remains limited partly due to bioprocessing challenges. A robust host that performs consistently well across scales should withstand variations in oxygen availability since local hypoxic regions often manifest in large-scale tanks even under strict operational control. In this work, we modified Halomonas sp. to achieve robust growth profiles in micro-aerobic environments by gradually exposing a continuous culture to stress induced by reduced oxygen availability using adaptive laboratory evolution. Nominal contamination was observed at 8.5% salt concentration even during non-aseptic operation, offering a suitable environment for prolonged continuous cultivation. Following adaptive laboratory evolution, Halomonas sp. achieved comparable growth at low-to-moderate (0.5%-3.0%) and moderate-to-high (3.0–5.0%) dissolved oxygen availability (OD600 = 4.46 ± 0.29 & µ = 0.40 h− 1 and 4.96 ± 0.81 & µ = 0.35 h− 1, respectively). Adaptive evolution improved the growth robustness of Halomonas sp. by 62% and its PHB production yield by 21%, while reducing ectoine production by 79% indicting improved metabolic perception of oxygen availability and reduced stress response. Mutations in cellular transport mechanisms and enzymatic pathways enabled this response as indicated by whole genome sequencing. The proposed framework is an effective strategy to reduce the oxygen sensitivity of microbial strains in general to improve their physiological properties, and to genetically design populations suitable for large scale bioprocess operations.

The Biochemical Society’s Summer Vacation Studentship scheme funds a range of six-week summer placements for undergraduate students in biochemistry and related subjects. Each year, the Eisenthal Prize is awarded to the top student based on their application score and post-studentship report. In 2025, the Eisenthal Prize was presented to Corinne McCarthy from the University of Oxford, for her project ‘In vitro comparisons of Plasmodium falciparum and Homo sapiens End Binding protein 1’ which was undertaken with her supervisor, Dr Clinton Lau. Read on to hear about Corinne’s experience and outcomes from her studentship.

2,2′-Bis(2-hydroxyethoxy)-1,1′-binaphthalene (BHB), a key optical polymer precursor, faces purification challenges, while its solubility behavior in binary solvents remains underexplored. In this work, the solubility behavior of BHB Form B was systematically investigated in four binary solvent systems (ethyl acetate + toluene, acetone + n-propanol, methyl acetate + n-butanol, and ethyl formate + i-propanol) across 283.15–323.15 K under ambient pressure. Experimental results showed that solubility increased with the temperature at fixed solvent compositions. Solubility initially increased and subsequently decreased with solvent compositions at constant temperatures, confirming the cosolvency effect. The experimental solubility data were well correlated using the modified Apelblat equation, NRTL model, CNIBS/R–K model, and Apelblat–Jouyban–Acree model, with the CNIBS/R–K model providing the best fitting performance. Solvation free energy further demonstrated that enhanced solute–solvent interactions contribute to the cosolvency effect. These findings provide valuable insight into optimizing crystallization processes in the industrial production of high-purity BHB.

The presence of 41 per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) was investigated in raw and finished drinking water and in influent and effluent wastewater sampled from facilities in the Great Lakes Basin region of Southern Ontario, Canada (September–November 2023). Based on US Environmental Protection Agency Method 1633A, the method developed for analysis of these species demonstrates high sensitivity and recovery with limits of quantitation that range between 0.075 ng L–1 and 3.0 ng L–1. Linear chain PFAS with carboxylic acid and sulfonic acid groups were detected in finished water from all drinking water treatment plants (n = 6). Wastewater effluents (n = 2) had PFAS concentrations approximately 1 order of magnitude higher than those in finished drinking water samples and included several fluorotelomers and ether-linked species. Across all sites, 13 of the 41 PFAS were detected in drinking water and 21 in wastewater. Average sum of 25 PFAS in finished drinking water ranged between 8.69 and 14.0 ng L–1, well below Health Canada’s objective of 30 ng L–1. These results highlight the persistence of PFAS across treatment systems and suggest a potential feedback loop where wastewater effluents reintroduce PFAS into surface waters used as drinking water sources.

The anisotropic rheological properties of compression-molded long carbon fiber reinforced polyamide 6 are examined using isothermal squeeze flow tests between two parallel plates at various temperatures and compression velocities. Due to the aligned initial fiber orientation state, the material exhibits strongly anisotropic flow behavior independent of the temperature and compression velocity. However, the material’s stress response is dependent on the shear rate and temperature, which are both investigated. In addition, lofting effects during heating are discussed. A two-dimensional model for non-lubricated squeeze flow that considers shear thinning behavior and the coupling between fiber orientation and flow is developed to capture the anisotropic viscous material behavior. The Mori–Tanaka-based fiber orientation evolution equation describes the fiber reorientation. The material properties are determined using state-of-the-art optimization techniques in a two-step procedure. First, the material parameters describing the shear thinning and anisotropic flow behavior are determined, followed by the temperature-dependent parameters. The obtained material properties agree well with the experimentally observed temperature and shear rate dependence. The material’s anisotropic nature, expressed by an ellipse-like deformation, is also well represented. Finally, the sensitivity of the anisotropy ratio on the velocity field for different shear thinning behavior is investigated. • CF-PA6 LFT-D has strongly anisotropic flow behavior and pronounced shear rate dependence. • We propose a novel methodology for characterizing the anisotropic rheological behavior using squeeze flow experiments. • We propose an anisotropic viscous material model, which considers fiber–matrix coupling, shear rate, and temperature dependence. • The parameterized model accurately captures the behavior observed in the experiments. • The anisotropy ratio and shear rate dependence strongly influence the velocity field.

Relative humidity and water activity (aH) reductions have been known to suppress the hydration of anhydrous cement clinker phases. However, the relationship between ye’elimite (C4A3$) hydration kinetics and water activity remain unclear. This study employs experimental and thermodynamic modeling approaches to investigate the influence of water activity on ye’elimite hydration in the “C4A3$ + water”, and “C4A3$ + gypsum + water” systems. Experimental findings indicate that as water activity decreases, C4A3$ hydration diminishes until the reaction is brought to a halt at a threshold aH. The critical aH and corresponding solubility constant of C4A3$ (KC4A3S¯) estimated from thermodynamic analysis are 0.46 and 10–24.554, respectively. Critical aH and KC4A3S¯ are fundamental data for the numerical modeling of hydration in C4A3$-based cementitious systems. Additionally, thermodynamic modeling was employed to reveal the effects of isopropanol ingress on the precipitation-dissolution of hydrated phase assemblage and the speciation in the aqueous pore solution.