Chiral Molecules Lab Report

Introduction

Chiral molecules chemical structures that are non-superimposable mirror images of one another, much like the way a person’s hands are. Also known as stereoisomers, these compounds have the same molecular formula with different spacial orientation. Each chiral molecule contains a pair of enantiomers, each of which represents the two structures for each molecule (ie left hand and right hand). Chiral molecules play a huge part in pharmaceutical compounds, making up 56% of the drugs currently on the market with around 88% of these being classified as racemic ie. Has an equal amount of left and right hand enantiomers. While they have the same chemical structure they have very notable differences when it comes to their biological activities such as toxicology, metabolism, pharmacology etc. With this in mind it is of great importance that we fully understand the properties of chiral molecules and the effects that they may

In this there is an active and an inactive enantiomer with the substituents of the active enantiomer matching the active binding site of the receptor as seen in fig 2. This makes it possible to obtain a response from the drug. Similarly if the enantiomer was rotated the substituents would no longer match leading to zero activity from the drug.

Serparation of Chiral Molecules

Due to the potential toxicity of certain chiral molecules it may be necessary to separate the enantiomers before further processing them. In recent years there have been several new methods introduced including various types of chromatography ie. Thin-Layer, High Performance Liquid Chromatography and Gas Chromatography as well as more advanced methods such as the separation of amino acids using capillary electromigration techniques and the use of polymeric membranes.