In this review, the field of biosurface organic chemistry is defined and some examples are presented. The aim of biosurface organic chemistry, composed of surface organic chemistry, bioconjugation, and micro- and nanofabrication, is to control the interfaces between biological and non-biological systems at the molecular level. Biosurface organic chemistry has evolved into the stage, where the lateral and vertical control of chemical compositions is achievable with recent developments of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Some new findings in the field are discussed in consideration of their applicability to nanobiotechnology and biomedical sciences.

This research aims to develop DNA chip array without an indicator. We fabricated microelectrode array by photolithography technology. Several DNA probes were immobilized on an electrode. Then, indicator-free target DNA was hybridized by an electrical force and measured electrochemically. Cyclic-voltammograms (CVs) showed a difference between DNA probe and mismatched DNA in an anodic peak. Immobilization of probe DNA and hybridization of target DNA could be confirmed by fluorescent. This indicator-free DNA chip microarray resulted in the sequence-specific detection of the target DNA quantitatively ranging from $10^{-18}\;M\;to\;10^{-5}$ M in the buffer solution. This indicator-free DNA chip resulted in a sequence-specific detection of the target DNA.

Solvent effects on the kinetics of bromophenol blue fading have been investigated within a temperature range in binary mixtures of methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, ethylene glycol and 1,2-propanediol with water of varying solvent compositions up to 40% by weight of organic solvent component. Correlation of logk with reciprocal of the dielectric constant was linear. Finally a mechanism was proposed for the bromophenol blue fading upon SESMORTAC (study of effect of solvent mixture on the one-step reaction rates using the transition state theory and cage effect) model, by means of this model, the fundamental rate constants of the fading reaction in these solvent systems were calculated.

The stability constants for the diaza-18-crown-6 ethers 2-6 and alkali metal cations ($Na^+,\;K^+,\;Rb^+\;and\;Cs^+$) were determined using potentiometry in 95% methanol. For each metal ion the stability constants of the partiallyfluorinated ligands 3-6 were larger than that of the non-fluorinated ligand 2, which might reflect an interaction between fluorine atoms and alkali metal cations. The stability constant of the ligand 4 was larger than that of the ligand 5 for each metal cation tested. This finding was also supported by the results of cation-induced chemical shifts in $^1H-,\;^{19}F$-NMR and extraction experiment. The potentiometry and NMR results as well as the X-ray crystal structures revealed that the position and number of fluorine atoms in the benzyl side arms was crucial for the enhanced interaction between a ligand and an alkali metal.

We have utilized neural network (NN) studies to predict impact sensitivities of various types of explosive molecules. Two hundreds and thirty four explosive molecules have been taken from a single database, and thirty nine molecular descriptors were computed for each explosive molecule. Optimization of NN architecture has been carried out by examining seven different sets of molecular descriptors and varying the number of hidden neurons. For the optimized NN architecture, we have utilized 17 molecular descriptors which were composed of compositional and topological descriptors in an input layer, and 2 hidden neurons in a hidden layer.

Free-standing nanoporous alumina membrane microtubes with different shapes (rectangular and cylindrical tubes) and variable dimensions were easily fabricated by direct anodization of the aluminum templates of the specified shapes (strip and wire) and dimensions during the electrochemical reaction.

Fluorescence of green fluorescent protein mutant, 2-5 GFP is observed during denaturation by guanidine. The fluorescence intensity decreases exponentially but the fluorescence lifetime does not change during denaturation. The fluorescence lifetime of the denatured protein is shorter than that of native form. As the protein structure is modified by guanidine, solvent water molecules penetrate into the protein barrel and protonate the chromophore to quench fluorescence. Most fluorescence quenchers do not affect the fluorescence of native form but accelerate the fluorescence intensity decay during denaturation. Based on the observations, a simple model is suggested for the structural change of the protein molecule during denaturation.

By introducing spin-coating method to the evaporation induced self-assembly (EISA) process, a simple and reproducible route in controlling the mesophase of silica thin films has been developed for the first time in this work. When a comparatively solvent-rich Si-sol (The atomic ratio of TEOS : F127 : HCl : $H_2O$ : EtOH = 1 : 0.006 : 0.2 : 9.2 : 30) was used as coating solution, the mesophase of resultant silica films was selectively controlled by adjusting the spin-on speed. The cubic mesophase has been obtained from the coating at a low rpm, such as 600 rpm, while the 2-D hexagonal mesophase is formed at a high rpm, such as 2,500 rpm. At a medium coating speed, a mixture of cubic and hexagonal mesophase has been found in the fabricated films. The present results confirm that the evaporation rate of volatile components at initial step is critical for the determination of mesopore structures during the EISA process.

The bis(2,4,4-trimethylpentyl)phosphinic acid (Cyanex-272) and sodium diethyl- dithiocarbamate (NaDDC) ligands were used to extract of metal ions ($Cd^{2+},\;Co^{2+},\;Cu^{2+},\;Pb^{2+},\;Zn^{2+}$) in supercritical $CO_2$. Experiments showed a strong synergistic effect and better extraction efficiency if the two ligands were used together. In-situ UV-visible observation indicates that NaDDC in the water/supercritical $CO_2$ started to decompose slowly. The synergistic effect seems to come from the deprotonation of the organophosphorus ligand by amines from the decomposed NaDDC. The enhancing role of amines was confirmed using the mixture of Cyanex-272 and diethylamine(DEA) in the metal extraction.

Squarylium or squaraine dyes are derived from 1,2-dihydroxycyclobuten-3,4-dione, otherwise known as squaric acids. They are two principal types: the 1,2-bisdonorsubstituted derivatives, and the 1,3-bisdonorsubstituted derivatives. The former are essentially merocyanines and have no distinctive properties, whereas the latter represent a unique type of chromophore, which is neither a merocyanines nor cyanine and has exceptional light absorption characteristics. They also have many functional applications based on their special properties. Thus it was the objective of this research project to synthesize a range of 1,3-squarylium dyes of widely differing structural types, and to investigate their light absorption and fluorescence properties in general, and the color change properties of appropriate examples in particular. Also in this study, the various pHinduced colour change processes were examined.

To gain further insight on the relationship between structure and functions of glutathione S-transferase (GST), the three tyrosine 108 mutants, Y108A, Y108F, and Y108W, of human GST P1-1 were expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to electrophoretic homogeneity by affinity chromatography on immobilized GSH. The substitution of Tyr 108 with alanine resulted in significant decrease of the GSH-conjugation activity and the GSH peroxidase activity, but approximately 63% increase of steroid isomerase activity toward ${\Delta}^5$–[androstene 3,17-dione. On the other hand, the substitution of Tyr 108 with phenylalanine resulted in decreases of $k_{cat}\;and\;k_{cat}/K_m{^{EPNP}}$ by 2 orders of magnitude, suggesting that Tyr 108 residue of hGSTP1-1 are considered to be important for the catalysis and the binding of the epoxide substrates. The substitution of Tyr 108 with tryptophan resulted in significant decreases of the specific activities toward EPNP, cumene hydroperoxide and ${\Delta}^5$–ndrostene 3,17-dione, but approximately 2-fold increase on the enzyme-catalyzed addition of GSH to DCNB. We conclude from these results that Tyr 108 in hGST P1-1 plays very different roles depending upon the nature of the electrophilic substrates.

A method is described for the determination of dibutyltin (DBT) in sediment by isotope dilution using liquid chromatography inductively-coupled plasma/mass spectrometry (LC-ICP/MS). To achieve the highest accuracy and precision, special attentions are paid in optimization and evaluation of overall processes of the analysis including extraction of analytes, characterization of the standards used for calibration and LC-ICP/MS conditions. An approach for characterization of natural abundance DBT standard has been developed by combining inductively-coupled plasma/optical emission spectrometry (ICP/OES) and LC-ICP/MS for the total Sn assay and the analysis of Sn species present as impurities, respectively. An excellent LC condition for separation of organotin species was found, which is suitable for simultaneous DBT and tributyltin (TBT) analysis as well as impurity analysis of DBT standards. Microwave extraction condition was also optimized for high efficiency while preventing species transformation. The present method determines the amount contents of DBT in sediments with expanded uncertainty of less than 5% and its result shows high degree of equivalence with reference values of an international inter-comparison and a certified reference material (CRM) within stated uncertainties.

The crude methanol extract of the fruits of Amomum tsao-ko (Zingiberaceae) showed cytotoxic activity. Bioactivity-guided separation led to the isolation of a diarylheptanoid, tsaokoarylone [7-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-1-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-hepta-4E,6E-dien-3-one] (2). 2 showed cytotoxicity at 4.9 and 11.4 $\mu$g/mL ($IC_{50}$) against human nonsmall cell lung cancer A549 and human melanoma SK-Mel-2, respectively, determined by SRB colorimetric method. During purification-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-4-hydroxyhexan-2-one (4) together with three known diarylheptanoids was also isolated. Their structures were determined from interpretation of spectroscopic data (IR, UV, MS, and NMR) and synthesis confirmed the structure of 2.