Questions for the Future

The fact that relatively few commercial processes currently utilize dehydrogenases, in spite of the high level of interest at the research and bench scales, argues that progress is needed in this area before these enzymes can be considered to be a normal part of chemical synthesis. Many of these advances will come by partnerships with genomics, nanotechnology and computational approaches. In the discovery area, key questions for the future are ... 

Immobilization has also been shown to stabilize against solvent dena-turation of enzymes. However, here we presented suggestive data on the mechanisms of this stabilization. Only the CPO immobilized in 200-A sol-gel showed any solvent or temperature stabilization. CPO bound to matrices with pores smaller than the protein showed little or no stabilization effect owing to surface immobilization alone. This supports the concept that steric hindrance to protein unfolding within a pore is part of the stabilization mechanism. An unresolved question for the future applications of this research is to increase the overall enzyme activity or loading. 

Kr in the m 26 founder, whereas the presence of Numb in the m 27 founder blocks this activity, thereby allowing A r expression to be maintained (Figure 4). A major question for the future will be how the asymmetry in the muscle progenitor is established initially, an attribute that ultimately determines the differential development of the sibling founder cells and the muscles derived from them. 

How long terminal waste dumping ( throwaway mentality ) will be deemed acceptable at all is a question for the future. It can be assumed that society will adopt a new point of view. In other words, replacement parts will begin to find a market wherever their use makes good ecological sense. Of course, the lower costs are another incentive for use of replacement parts. In the area of replacement car parts in particular, there is a clear-cut opportunity to get away from the throwaway... 

In summary, I have ridden this hobby horse because I join many others as seeing these issues as being much more than ego-driven squabbles on the frontiers of genomics, but rather as deep questions for the future of an emerging industry which could, inter alia, transform great swathes of Chemical Engineering. 

One important aspect of this collection of different researchers in the field of nanotechnology is the question for the future developments. In this context one author writes "the technology has concentrated so far on the long lasting questions of electrochemistry". This can be emphasized with the statement that many of the results were already assumed on the basis of classical integral measurements. However, many STM or AFM results are completely unexpected and surprizing. Discrepancies between classical integral and local information have to be cleared up by independent measurements. In this context many authors mention that the new technique must be considered as only one method of the entire ensemble of in-situ and ex-situ surface methods. This is an important statement, since different surface spectroscopic methods such as in-situ X-ray, Raman, NMR, etc. may act as such independent methods. 

The finding of multifunctional enzyme systems for biosynthetic pathways, such as fatty acid synthesis, suggests that such organized systems may have importance elsewhere. Whether they exist in photosynthesis and how they operate if they do exist is a very important question for the future. The answer will come from a combination of tracer studies, investigation of the enzymes isolated by a variety of sophisticated techniques, and the gathering of better and more detailed knowledge of the structure of the chloroplast through the application of electron microscopy and various techniques of chemical and physical analysis. 

Sargent R. Process systems engineering a retrospective view with questions for the future. Comp Chem Eng 2005 29 1237-41. 

While NASA failed to make the production/safety tradeoff reasonably in the context of foam strikes, the question for the future is how to help organizations make these... 

As described below, and elsewhere in this volume, signal transduction molecules and transcription factors are, in many cases, dependent upon zinc or copper for structural integrity and activity. A key question for the future is whether the bioavailability of these metal ions is capable of regulating either the level or specificity of gene transcription, and whether the trans-... 

These pulse-chase experiment results confirm and extend the previous data of Vendor and Rlchardson and relate to those of Hansen s group dealing with water stress, but do not lend themselves to an easy Interpretation. From our results we conclude that the precursors for phospholipid synthesis occur In different pools within the cell and that these pools do not always have ready access to each other. For example, exogenously added serine can enter Into phosphatldylserlne and thereby arrive In PC, but It does not appear to arrive at PC through the nucleotide pathway of synthesis. Therefore, It appears not to be contributing Immediately to the choline pool used for PC synthesis. This does not mean, however, that endogenously produced serine would not be available for choline production. We have yet to sort out exactly where or how these pools are compartmented, but the results raise some Intriguing questions for the future. 

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