Correlated, counterpoise corrected wave function calculations on the hydrogen-coronene system are used to investigate the energy landscape and the dynamic behavior of hydrogen atoms physisorbed on graphite. The adopted MP2 correlation level, employing the aug-cc-pVDZ basis set augmented with bond functions, has been selected after extensive investigation on the smaller hydrogen-benzene system. The computed physisorption energy (39.7 meV) is in excellent agreement with the existing experimental value of (39.2 ( 0.5) meV for a graphite single layer (Ghio, E.; Mattera, L.; Salvo, C.; Tommasini, F.; Valbusa, U. J. Chem. Phys. 1980, 73, 557) and makes one confident of the computed barriers to diffusion. A simple, analytical expression of the corrugated potential energy surface fitted to the calculated energy values is then used in 3D quantum dynamical calculations of the tunneling contribution to the diffusion coefficient. Results show that hydrogen atoms physisorbed on graphite are highly mobile on the surface even at T ) 0 K. This suggests that hydrogen formation in cold, interstellar clouds can indeed occur down to very low temperatures through recombination of hydrogen atoms previously physisorbed on the surface of dust grains.

Pebbles is a user-friendly software program which implements an accurate, unbiased, and fast method to measure the morphology of a population of nanoparticles (NPs) from TEM micrographs. The morphological parameters of the projected NP shape are obtained by fitting intensity models to the TEM micrograph. Pebbles can be used either in automatic mode, where both fitting and validation are reliably carried out with minimal human intervention, and in manual mode, where the user has full control on the fitting and validation steps. Accuracy in diameter measurement has been shown to be ≲1%. When operated in automatic mode, Pebbles can be very fast. The effective speed of 1 NP s⁻¹ has been achieved in favorable cases (packed monolayer of NPs). Since Pebbles is based on a local modeling procedure, it successfully treats cases such as low contrast NPs, NPs with significant diffraction scattering, and inhomogeneous background which often make conventional thresholding procedures fail. Pebbles is accompanied by PebbleJuggler, a software program for the statistical analysis of the sets of best-fit NP models created by Pebbles. Effort has been devoted to make Pebbles and PebbleJuggler the most user-friendly and the least user-tedious we could. Pebbles and PebbleJuggler are available at http://pebbles.istm.cnr.it.

Magnetic nanoparticles, MNPs, mineralized within a human ferritin protein cage, HFt, can represent an appealing platform to realize smart therapeutic agents for cancer treatment by drug delivery and magnetic fluid hyperthermia, MFH. However, the constraint imposed by the inner diameter of the protein shell (ca. 8 nm) prevents its use as heat mediator in MFH when the MNPs comprise pure iron oxide. In this contribution, we demonstrate how this limitation can be overcome through the controlled doping of the core with small amount of Co(II). Highly monodisperse doped iron oxide NPs with average size of 7 nm are mineralized inside a genetically modified variant of HFt, carrying several copies of α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone peptide, which has already been demonstrated to have excellent targeting properties toward melanoma cells. HFt is also conjugated to poly(ethylene glycol) molecules to increase its in vivo stability. The investigation of hyperthermic properties of HFt-NPs shows that a Co doping of 5% is enough to strongly enhance the magnetic anisotropy and thus the hyperthermic efficiency with respect to the undoped sample. In vitro tests performed on B16 melanoma cell line demonstrate a strong reduction of the cell viability after treatment with Co doped HFt-NPs and exposure to the alternating magnetic field. Clear indications of an advanced stage of apoptotic process is also observed from immunocytochemistry analysis. The obtained data suggest this system represents a promising candidate for the development of a protein-based theranostic nanoplatform.

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