This year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry describes an efficient, “accurate, cheap, fast and environmentally friendly” way to grow new molecules using a simple but innovative concept of catalysis – asymmetric organocatalysis. It was provided to German scientist Benjamin List of the Max Planck Institute and Scottish-born scientist David WC Macmillan of Princeton University, who independently developed the new method of catalysis in 2000. one could ever imagine”. Since then, the process he developed has given rise to a “gold rush” in the catalysis field. Many of the new organocatalysts that have been developed have helped drive a variety of chemical reactions, This in turn has accelerated pharmaceutical drug research. Asymmetric organocatalysts allow researchers to efficiently produce new molecules with absolute certainty of 3-D orientation or handiness. Molecules that exist naturally and those that are synthesized Can exist in two forms – right handed and left handed, and their properties often differ depending on the hand they are in. In the 1950-60s, thalidomide was widely used to treat nausea in pregnant women. But it caused serious birth defects. It became clear that the right-hand molecule was highly toxic. But asymmetric organisms allowed the production of molecules of the desired mirror image form. Isolation of each intermediate product when using other catalysts and requires refinement – whereby every variable There is a loss of matter in the O – asymmetric organocatalysts allow multiple steps in molecule production to continue without interruption, reducing waste.
In 2001, the three scientists who developed asymmetric catalysts for the first time received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. But such catalysts often use heavy metals, making them expensive and harmful to the environment. There were other challenges as well – high sensitivity to oxygen and water. This meant that industrial use made the process expensive. Many enzyme catalysts are also asymmetric and are not sensitive to oxygen and water. But they are often much larger than the actual target drug and may take longer to do their job. Instead of using enzymes typically containing hundreds of amino acids, this year’s award winners developed a carbon-based catalyst composed of single, globular amino acids. Since these catalysts are asymmetric, only one type of molecule is produced. If Benjamin List used a single amino acid proline to perform a certain bond-forming chemical reaction, WC Macmillan demonstrated that several modified amino acids could asymmetrically produce another bond-forming reaction. The award winners used spherical shaped amino acids to ensure that only a mirror image of the molecule was produced. This year’s award underscores an often overlooked message – great discoveries can also come from simple ideas that are often overlooked.
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