Urinary calculi, i.e. popularly known as urinary stones, are found in urinary/renal areas, which are mineral crystalline depositions. It is globally observed human suffering and leads to costly medical managements. Generally, in the urinary calculi, the crystalline depositions of calcium oxalate, calcium phosphate, struvite, uric acid and cystine are found either in a pure phase or mixed phase. The formation of calculi leads to often severe painful urinary disease, which is found in not only humans but animals and birds also. In this article, we review the mechanism of crystal formation of calculi, factors affecting crystal formation, calculi chemical composition, characterization, health risk due to urinary calculi, diagnosis methods, and method of treatment or management. Also the in vivo and in vitro models are discussed. Presently the in vitro gel-based model for the growth inhibition studies of urinary type crystals is discussed in detail through the approach of reverse pharmacology to rapidly screen pre-clinically the potential herbal formulations. The importance of alternate medicine, mathematical and computer modelling and artificial intelligence in management of urinary calculi is briefly discussed. The authors emphasize the holistic approach to deal with urinary calculi through all sciences, technologies and traditional knowledges available presently.

Pharmaceutical cocrystals are a versatile means of enhancing the properties of drug compounds, making them a valuable asset in drug formulation and development. They can improve the therapeutic performance and overall patient experience of pharmaceutical products. This review begins with a brief introduction to pharmaceutical cocrystals and definitions, including their components. It also covers current regulatory aspects, such as patents, ongoing clinical trials, and marketed formulations of cocrystals in the pharmaceutical industry. Predicting cocrystal formation in the early stages of formulation development can be challenging, often requiring significant time and resources. To overcome this challenge, both empirical and computational methods have been developed to efficiently and accurately screen potential co-formers, thereby reducing the number of laboratory experiments needed. This review presents advanced methods for preparing pharmaceutical cocrystals and emphasizes sophisticated techniques for evaluating them. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion on the applications of pharmaceutical cocrystals in drug delivery, reinforcing their vital role in the future of pharmaceuticals.

This review provides crystallographic insight into stacking interactions between aromatic ligands in organometallic sandwich and half-sandwich compounds obtained by analyzing all crystal structures deposited in the Cambridge Structural Database. The influence of various structural features of aromatic ligands onto their stacking interactions were considered, including ring size (cyclopentadienyl, benzene, tropylium, cyclooctatetraenide), substituents (toluene, p-cymene, methylcyclopentadienyl, pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) and fused rings (indenyl, naphthalene). The crystallographic data were supported by quantum chemical calculations of interaction energies, which show that coordination to transition metals can significantly strengthen stacking interactions of aromatic compounds. Particular attention was given to stacking interactions with large horizontal displacements, which are very important in molecular recognition process and enable formation of additional simultaneous interactions. Even though stacking interactions are shown to be the weakest type of interactions between metallocene compounds, they are shown to be very important supramolecular forces in crystal structures.

The character tables are tools for the representation of groups, which are used to describe the symmetry of crystal structures. The expression of the character tables is concise, it is difficult to readers to understand its function. This study employs the Li2CO3 crystal structure with C2/c space group (C2h point group) as a prototype. Graphical illustrations and text are combined to systematically dissect symmetry operations, irreducible representations, characters, and basis in the character table. Through this approach, we establish clear three-dimensional spatial representations of symmetry transformations, thereby constructing an intuitive framework for readers. Additionally, this paper explains the specific applications of the character tables to lattice vibrational modes and atomic orbitals, thereby, highlighting the theoretical significance.

The synthetic anhydrous analogue of the mineral leucite has the chemical formula KAlSi2O6, it has a silicate framework crystal structure with the same topology as the zeolite analcime. In this crystal structure Al partially replaces Si in the framework, a K extraframework cation is incorporated to balance the charges. Synthetic analogues of leucite are known with the general formulae ACX 2O6 and A 2 BX 5O12, where A is a monovalent cation, B is a divalent cation, C is a trivalent cation and X is Si or Ge. The crystal structures of these analogues have the same topology but otherwise show differences in crystal structure symmetry and framework cation ordering. This paper reviews the work done on leucite analogue crystal structures over the years and looks forward to work that could be done on these fascinating materials in the future.