Glycans are the most abundant fundamental biomolecules, but profiling glycans is challenging due to their structural complexity. To address this, a novel glycan detection platform is developed by integrating surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), boronic acid receptors, and machine learning tools. Boronic acid receptors bind with glycans, and the reaction influences molecular vibrations, leading to unique Raman spectral patterns. Unlike prior studies that focus on designing a boronic acid with high binding selectivity toward a target glycan, this sensor is designed to analyze overall changes in spectral patterns using machine learning algorithms. For proof‐of‐concept, 4‐mercaptophenylboronic acid (4MBA) and 1‐thianthrenylboronic acid (1TBA) are used for glycan detection. The sensing platform successfully recognizes the stereoisomers and the structural isomers with different glycosidic linkages. The collective spectra that combine the spectra from both boronic acid receptors improve the performance of the support vector machine model due to the enrichment of the structural information of glycans. In addition, this new sensor could quantify the mole fraction of sialic acid in lactose background using the machine learning regression technique. This low‐cost, rapid, and highly accessible sensor will provide the scientific community with another option for frequent comparative glycan screening in standard biological laboratories.

A small subset of heptamethine dyes (cyanine-7 or Cy7) share an intriguing characteristic: preferential tumor accumulation and retention. These dyes absorb in the near-infrared (NIR) region (above 750 nm) and perform active targeting to deliver therapeutic and toxic cargoes to various tumor models in vivo. In this work, four heptamethines 1 were synthesized, which have a gemcitabine fragment attached to the meso-position of the Cy7 core. Theranostic agent 1a was discovered that localized in glioblastoma tumor cells, has absorption maxima in NIR region, and showed similar therapeutic effect to gemcitabine but at one-third the molar dose.

The products of solvent polymerization and degradation are crucial components of the Li-metal battery solid-electrolyte interphase. However, in-depth mechanistic studies of these reactions are still scarce. Here, we model the polymerization of common lithium battery electrolyte solventsethylene carbonate (EC) and vinylene carbonate (VC)near the anode surface. Being consistent with the molecular calculation, ab initio molecular dynamic (AIMD) simulations reveal fast solvent decompositions upon contact with the Li anode. Additionally, we assessed the thermochemical impacts of decarboxylation reactions as well as the lithium bonding with reaction intermediates. In both EC and VC polymerization pathways, lithium bonding demonstrated profound catalytic effects while different degrees of decarboxylation were observed. The VC polymerization pathways with and without ring-opening events were evaluated systematically, and the latter one which leads to poly­(VC) formation was proven to dominate the oligomerization process. Both the decomposition and polymerization reactivities of VC are found to be higher than EC, while the cross-coupling between EC and VC has an even lower-energy barrier. These findings are in good agreement with experimental evidence and explanatory toward the enhanced performance of VC-added lithium-metal batteries.

Multi-component reactions assemble complex molecules in a highly effective way, however they often suffer from long reaction times. We demonstrate that acceleration of a five-component spiro-pyrrolidine construction can be achieved...

A linker design strategy is developed to attain novel polynuclear rare-earth (RE) metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) with unprecedented topologies. We uncover the critical role of ortho-functionalized tricarboxylate ligands in directing the construction of highly connected RE MOFs. The acidity and conformation of the tricarboxylate linkers were altered by substituting with diverse functional groups at the ortho position of the carboxyl groups. For instance, the acidity difference between carboxylate moieties resulted in forming three hexanuclear RE MOFs with novel (3,3,3,10,10)-c wxl, (3,12)-c gmx, and (3,3,3,12)-c joe topologies, respectively. In addition, when a bulky methyl group was introduced, the incompatibility between the net topology and ligand conformation guided the co-appearance of hexanuclear and tetranuclear clusters, generating a novel 3-periodic MOF with a (3,3,8,10)-c kyw net. Interestingly, a fluoro-functionalized linker prompted the formation of two unusual trinuclear clusters and produced a MOF with a fascinating (3,8,10)-c lfg topology, which could be gradually replaced by a more stable tetranuclear MOF with a new (3,12)-c lee topology with extended reaction time. This work enriches the polynuclear clusters library of RE MOFs and unveils new opportunities to construct MOFs with unprecedented structural complexity and vast application potential.