New synthesis strategy for chiral drugs: Versatile chiral chemical species from aldehydes

Chirality is a geometric property of some molecules and ions, and a chiral molecule/ion is non-superposable on its mirror image, just like our right and left hands. A number of chiral molecules can be found in the world of chemistry, while their constituting atoms and alignment are the same. Enantiomers, which are chiral molecules, have similar chemical and physical characteristics but their biological functions, if any, are very different one another. For example, out of a pair of chiral molecules, one enantiomer may show an excellent pharmaceutical/medical activity while the other enantiomer may exert an adverse effect. Thus, developing a chemical synthesis reaction that selectively produces one enantiomer of chiral molecules useful in medicine is of great significance in the synthesis of drugs and their precursors.

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