N EWS O F T H E WE E K
JUAN M. GARCIA RUIZ (BOTH)
CURVY CRYSTALS CRYSTALLOGRAPHY: Researchers begin
to unravel the mechanism behind lab-made shapely inorganic crystals
W
HEN NATURE CREATES exquisite swirls in
seashells, the assembly of inorganic ions into appealing shapes is guided by helper proteins or organic molecules. Surprisingly similar curvy crystals have been made in a beaker from barium carbonate and silica, but without the aid of scaffold or support. Now, researchers in Spain and Australia are taking a first stab at explaining how the curvy, “biomorph” crystals can be produced from only simple, inorganic ions. When Juan M. García Ruiz, a crystallographer at University of Granada, in Spain, first reported the existence of beaker-made biomorphs in 2003, the elegant inorganic crystals ignited a debate among paleobiologists. It turns out that some of the biomorph crystals look like 3.5 billion-year-old fossils from Warrawoona, Australia. Some paleobiologists believe the fossils are among the earliest records of microorganisms and thus provide an estimate of the origin of life on Earth. The similarity fed concerns among paleobiologists that the Warrawoona fossils were perhaps the result of inorganic depositions and not early life, and it sparked controversy. García Ruiz’ “experiments and interpretations are fascinating and significant,” says Malcolm Walter, a paleobiologist and astrobiologist at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney. “But not all of my colleagues agree,” he adds. Now, García Ruiz, coworker Emilio Melero-Garcia, and Stephen T. Hyde, a mathematician at the Australian National University, in Canberra, are proposing a mechanism for how these biomorphs might crystallize on their own. They argue that the deposition of alternating layers of silicate and barium carbonate rely on
pH oscillations at the surface of the growing crystal (Science 2009, 323, 362). To prepare the biomorph, barium chloride is first dissolved in an alkaline solution of silica. As CO2 from the atmosphere dissolves into the solution, the pH drops, and barium carbonate begins to precipitate. Formation of barium carbonate crystals causes acidification of the solution, which leads to the amorphous deposition of silica. When the silica deposits, the pH rises again. As the pH slips up and down, alternating layers of barium carbonate and silica are deposited, Garcia Ruiz explains. “The research is exciting but there is still a big mystery,” comments Werner Kunz, a chemist at the University of Regensburg, in Germany. “What is the origin of curvature of the growing crystal when neither the silicate or carbonate is rodlike or chiral? How do such simple ions come together to form curving crystals?” That’s exactly “the problem we are trying to solve now,” García Ruiz says.—SARAH EVERTS MORE ONLINE
Viewed under polarized light, crystals of barium carbonate and silica formed in a beaker yield pretty pictures.
See videos of the curvy crystallization at C&EN Online, www.cen-online.org.
PHARMA RESEARCH Pfizer will eliminate up to 800 R&D positions in 2009 Pfizer will lay off up to 800 researchers and other employees in its Pfizer Global Research & Development division this year. The cuts amount to between 5 and 8% of the staff at PGRD, which has facilities in Groton, Conn., and Sandwich, England, as well as at four other U.S. locations. The company is not releasing the locations where job cuts are being made. Pfizer informed affected employees last week. Ray Kerins, Pfizer’s global head of media relations, tells C&EN that the job cuts are part of a reorganization under PGRD’s new president, Martin Mackay.
He notes that Mackay, in his first year on the job, has eliminated 37 drug development projects to center resources on the most promising projects in six therapeutic areas: pain, oncology, inflammatory disease, diabetes, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease. The layoffs are happening in the broader context of pharmaceutical industry cost-cutting on the eve of patent expirations for numerous blockbuster drugs. Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company with an annual R&D budget of more than $7 billion, faces the loss of patent exclu-
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sivity for the cholesterol drug Lipitor— the world’s top-selling drug—in 2011. Cuts in R&D staff at Pfizer have been anticipated for months, and the loss of 800 jobs is not indicative of a change in course for research, according to analysts. “This represents a very small percentage of their research budget,” says Jean P. LeCroy, a health care industry analyst at Natixis Securities North America. “But in terms of that many researchers and Ph.D.s getting laid off, it’s probably a fairly significant event for the researchers and the economy.”—RICK MULLIN
