This review covers recent literature from 2012-2019 concerning 170 marine natural products and their semisynthetic analogues with strong anticancer biological activities. Reports that shed light on cellular and molecular mechanisms and biological functions of these compounds, thus advancing the understanding in cancer biology are also included. Biosynthetic studies and total syntheses, which have provided access to derivatives and have contributed to the proper structure or stereochemistry elucidation or revision are mentioned. The natural compounds isolated from marine organisms are divided into nine groups, namely: alkaloids, sterols and steroids, glycosides, terpenes and terpenoids, macrolides, polypeptides, quinones, phenols and polyphenols, and miscellaneous products. An emphasis is placed on several drugs originating from marine natural products that have already been marketed or are currently in clinical trials.

We demonstrate that photoisomerizable liquid-crystal elastomer soft films can be used as tunable holographic gratings. Optomechanical mechanism of imprinting one-dimensional grating structure into the soft matrix by two-beam uv laser interference can be clearly resolved from the time dependence of the reading beam diffraction patterns. We analyze the observed response in terms of cis-trans isomerization-controlled modulation of the grating profile. The grating period can be tuned reversibly by stretching or contraction of the specimen, either thermomechanically or by applying external stress. Temperature-induced modifications of the grating parameters in the vicinity of the nematic-paranematic phase transition are also examined.

The role of p-toluenesulfonic acid (p-TSA) as a catalyst and/or morphology-directing agent for the formation of ZnO particles with different sizes (20 to 250 nm) and shapes (from bullet-like to complex, cauliflower architectures) was studied. One-pot, low-temperature syntheses were performed using reaction mixtures containing zinc acetylacetonate hydrate (zinc oxide precursor), 1-butanol (medium and oxygen source) and different concentrations of p-TSA. The catalytic role of the p-TSA was pronounced when the p-TSA concentration was kept low, while an elevated acid concentration inhibits the reactivity of the ZnO precursor toward the alcoholysis, presumably due to the adhesion of the p-TSA on its surface. The abundance of ZnO surface chelation with the p-TSA controls the ZnO particle growth and shape as well as the self-assembly of ZnO nanocrystals into complex architectures. The particles' characterization and growth were assessed using TEM, HRTEM, FE-SEM, XRD and FTIR, while the reaction mechanism was proposed on the basis of ¹³C and ¹H NMR experiments.