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Synthetic chemistry

Light on chirality

Nature volume 436, pages 1099–1100 (2005)Cite this article

Reactions that produce only one of two mirror-image forms of a molecule are a hot topic in organic synthesis. A light-driven catalyst provides good results, and the technique could be generally applicable.

Chirality — the non-identity of a molecule with its mirror image — is ubiquitous. It occurs not only in biomolecules (amino acids, sugars, DNA and RNA are examples of chiral molecules), but also in man-made chemicals, materials and drugs. Catalytic asymmetric synthesis — the use of chiral catalysts to transfer and amplify chirality in chemical reactions — has therefore become a central topic in molecular science1. Bach and colleagues (this issue, page 1139)2 now combine two approaches to asymmetric synthesis — the thermal and the photochemical — to control the spatial arrangement of the atoms in a chiral reaction product. The results could be seminal in the field of chiral photochemistry.

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Figure 1: Choosy catalyst.

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  1. JST and Department of Applied Chemistry, Entropy Control Project, ICORP, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, 565-0871, Japan

    Yoshihisa Inoue

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  1. Yoshihisa Inoue
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Inoue, Y. Light on chirality. Nature 436, 1099–1100 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/4361099a

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