Design and synthesis of potent and selective inhibitors of integrin VLA-4.

The synthesis and identification of a novel series of inhibitors of integrin VLA-4 are described. Their in vitro activity and selectivity against closely related integrins are also presented.

Studies of a chemically modified oligodeoxynucleotide containing a 5-atom amide backbone which exhibits improved binding to RNA.

Chimeric oligodeoxyribonucleotides where the phosphodiester linkage -C3'-O-PO2--O-CH2-C4'- of DNA is substituted by the amide linkage -C3'-CH2-CH*(CH3)-CO-NH-CH2-C4' (*either R or S stereochemistry) have been prepared and their binding to RNA targets have been investigated. Incorporation of a single amide unit increases the Tm by approximately 1.4-1.9 degrees C. Circular dichroic spectra of these modified duplexes are similar to the wildtype DNA/RNA.

[Sleep and sleepers in literature]. / Vom Schlaf und den Schlafenden in der Literatur.

Sleep sets specific limits to self-control or self-disposal of man. Freud's statement that one third of our own self is still unborn points to a certain amount of uncertainty, linked permanently to our existence during sleep and associated with our loss of control over our rational thinking. Therefore, in the literature, sleep is quite often correlated with mythic, magic and religious conceptions. In particular, the experience of innocence is compellingly linked to sleep, necessarily followed by the question of guilt and evil. Goethe describes sleep as a process of working up and surmounting guilt as a basic event of spiritual and physical healing. Shakespeare's Macbeth, however, shows from an archaic-mystical as well as a modern psychological view how sleep is destroyed by crime.