BENZOIC ACID

~Benzoic acid is also known as 65-85-0; Benzenecarboxylic acid; Dracylic acid; Carboxybenzene; Benzeneformic acid etc. occurs naturally in many plants and is used as an intermediate in the biosynthesis of many metabolites. It is the simplest aromatic carboxylic acid and is fairly cheap and readily available.

Chemical structure: C₇H₆O₂ (or C₆H₅COOH)

Odor/ color: faint pleasant, odor, colorless crystalline solid

Production: 

a) Commercially it is produced by partial oxidation of toluene with oxygen, and catalyzed by cobalt or manganese naphthenate.

b) Hydrolysis: benzonitrile/ benzamide can be hydrolyzed to benzoic acid or its conjugate base in acid/ basic conditions.

c) Cannizzaro reaction: Disproportionation (redox reaction) of benzaldehyde -> benzoate and benzyl alcoh...

Hubble uncovers a vast, complex dust structure, about 150 billion miles across, enveloping the young star HR 4796A. A bright, narrow inner ring of dust is already known to encircle the star, based on much earlier Hubble images. This newly discovered huge dust structure around the system may have implications for what a yet-unseen planetary system looks like around the 8-million-year-old star. Credit: NASA/ESA/G. Schneider (Univ. of Arizona)

Astronomers have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to uncover a vast, complex dust structure, about 150 billion miles across, enveloping the young star HR 4796A. A bright, narrow, inner ring of dust is already known to encircle the star and may have been corralled by the gravitational pull of an unseen giant planet...

Top left: PGC1 deficiency leads to severe muscle damage, evidenced by numerous centralized nuclei (highlighted with arrows), which is likely due to impaired mitochondrial energy metabolism (bottom left: blue staining shows impaired mitochondrial activity). Such muscle damage and mitochondrial impairment is largely rescued by ERR? overexpression (top and bottom right). Credit: Salk Institute

If you’ve ever wondered how strenuous exercise translates into better endurance, researchers at the Salk Institute may have your answer. In a study published in the journal Cell Reports on March 6, 2018, scientists in Ronald Evans’ lab have shown that the protein ERRγ (ERR gamma) helps deliver many of the benefits associated with endurance exercise...

Gene therapy successfully treated a canine version of Best disease, a blinding disorder, the effects lasting more than five years. In these images of the retina of untreated (left) and treated (right) dogs, one can see that BEST1 gene expression (in red) was restored following treatment. In addition, the threrapy restored the structure of the RPE (green layer), a layer of cells that supports the light-sensing photoreceptor cells.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have developed a gene therapy that successfully treats a form of macular degeneration in a canine model. The work sets the stage for translating the findings into a human therapy for an inherited disease that results in a progressive loss of central vision and which is currently untreatable...