Making it easier to differentiate mirror-image molecules

Using a new method, scientists are better able to distinguish between mirror-image substances. This is important amongst others in drug development, because the two variants can cause completely different effects in the human ...

Controlling chemical mirror images

Chirality, while not a rarity in the world of molecules, is nevertheless a special property. If a molecule is chiral (from the Greek word chiros = hand), it exists in two mirrored versions that are very similar but not identical—like ...

Enantioselective synthesis of indole derivatives

Indoles, and structures derived from them, are a component of many natural substances, such as the amino acid tryptophan. A new catalytic reaction produces cyclopenta[ b ] indoles—frameworks made of three rings that are ...

Researchers develop catalyst with chirality at the zinc center

Researchers have designed and built a new chemical tool inspired by natural metal-containing enzymes in living organisms. The product, a tetrahedral "chiral zinc," maintains its shape for years, providing a new structure ...

Researchers access both enantiomers by varying reaction time

Homochirality is a fundamental feature of all living organism. It is well known that a pair of enantiomers of chiral drug molecules, whose structures have a non-superimposable mirror-image relationship to each other, will ...

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