This perspective explores the origins of both fluorine and medicinal chemistry a century ago and traces the early history of the intersection of these areas and the subsequent roles that fluorine has played in advancing medicinal innovations and diagnoses during the past 60 years. The overview highlights remarkable breakthroughs in many diverse areas of medicinal chemistry, including inter alia, anesthetics, steroidal and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, anticancer and antiviral agents, CNS medications, antibacterials and cholesterol biosynthesis inhibitors. The increasing use of fluorine-18-labeled radiotracers in PET for diagnostic imaging of the brain, heart and in oncology is briefly presented. The signature roles of fluorine in medicinal chemistry are now firmly established. The presence of fluorine in pharmaceuticals has had a major impact on a plethora of important medical applications, such as those cited above. Fluorine will very likely continue to contribute significantly by playing multifaceted roles in enhancing future medical advances.

We report here the synthesis of two new oligomeric copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) derivatives by esterification of the corresponding carboxylic acids with tri(ethylene glycol) monomethyl ether. The solubility of these derivatives in N,N 0 -dimethylformamide (DMF) enabled us to perform dielectric studies with poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) P(VDF-TrFE), acting as the host polymer matrix. The highest room temperature dielectric constant achieved is 94 at 100 Hz, compared with 12 for the base polymer host matrix. Thermogravimetric analyzes of the polymer films showed that they are thermostable at 100 C for a long period of time. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the films have also been analyzed.

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The use of fossil fuels has increasingly become associated with negative influences like detrimental environmental effects. This has made renewables, especially biofuels like biodiesel, a highly attractive substitute for energy generation. The industrial and economic potential of biodiesel-a lipid-based fuel-has increased interest and research into oleaginous microorganisms to synthesise and produce lipids. Effective identification and characterisation of a vast array of oleaginous microorganisms have led them to be employed for their efficient lipogenesis capability and ability to use a wide range of synthetic and non-expensive substrates. However, low lipid production has limited the use of microbially sourced lipids for biodiesel production at the industrial level. Nevertheless, the improvement and engineering of robust strains of these microbes through metabolic engineering have increased their lipid production capacity, leading to commercialising the lipids. This review provides a comprehensive outlook into the identification of different oleaginous microorganisms and their unique characteristics, which makes them highly valuable. An insight into the lipid biosynthesis pathways is provided and the role that several enzymes and regulators play in the metabolism of lipid accumulation. A detailed outlook is provided on the broad range of metabolic engineering approaches with regard to enhanced lipid production in several oleaginous microorganisms.

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