Understanding chiral amplification and chiral interactions in conglomerate crystals

路易斯·巴斯德最著名的是“巴氏消毒”过程，通常与牛奶有关，但巴斯德对化学的贡献可能更为深远。1848年，巴斯德仅凭目测就分离出酒石酸钠铵的镜像晶体，并在此过程中开创了分子不对称的有趣课题。手性或手性是我们日常生活的一部分，其重要性在制药工业、农用化学工业和食品工业中尤为明显。到2017年，全球手性技术产品市场预计将达到51亿美元。生物分子对单手性的手性偏好是生命系统的一个特征，但生物同手性的起源是当今科学家面临的一个突出的谜团，一个精确的解释尚未找到。一种流行的理论推测，像石英这样的手性晶体的表面可能是导致手性分子起源的不对称影响。诸如此类的推测引起了人们对手性晶体的极大关注。在我们的实验室里，我们正在打破镜像对称，并使用一种简单的研磨技术创造出单手性（同手性）的手性晶体。更重要的是，我们能够使用手性添加剂（例如左手或右手氨基酸）来控制镜像对称性破缺的方向（或手性）。本研究计划的主要目的是在分子水平上研究定向镜像对称破缺现象。我们将使用经典的晶体生长技术和现代仪器和计算方法来研究手性分子与手性晶体的相互作用。这项研究不仅对同手性的起源具有令人兴奋的意义，而且有机分子与晶体材料的相互作用是化学家、生物化学家和生物学家不断扩大的研究领域（例如骨骼、牙齿、肾结石和贝壳的形成）。我们在手性晶体研磨方面的工作，可能为研究在药物固态特性中起关键作用的多态性和共结晶提供重要的见解。

Louis Pasteur is best known for the process of `pasteurization', typically associated with milk, but Pasteur's contribution to Chemistry is probably more far reaching. In 1848, Pasteur separated mirror image crystals of sodium ammonium tartrate based solely on visual inspection, and in the process inaugurated the intriguing topic of molecular asymmetry. Chirality, or handedness, is part of our everyday lives and its importance is particularly evident in the pharmaceutical industry, the agrochemical industry, and the food industry. The global market for chiral technology-enabled products is forecast to reach $5.1 billion by 2017. Chiral preference for one handedness of biomolecules is a characteristic of living systems, but the origin of biological homochirality is one of the outstanding mysteries facing scientists today and a precise explanation has yet to be found. A popular theory speculates that surfaces of chiral crystals such as quartz could have been the asymmetric influence that led to the origin of chiral molecules in the prebiotic world. Speculations such as these have drawn a great deal of attention towards chiral crystals. In our lab we are breaking mirror-symmetry and creating chiral crystals of only one handedness (homochiral) using a simple grinding technique. More importantly, we are able to steer the direction (or handedness) of mirror-symmetry breaking using chiral additives (e.g. left- or right-handed amino acids). The main objective of this research program is to investigate the phenomenon of directed mirror-symmetry breaking at the molecular level. We will use classic crystal growing techniques and modern instrumental and computational methods to study the interactions of chiral molecules with chiral crystals. Not only does this research have exciting implications regarding the origin of homochirality, but the interaction of organic molecules with crystalline materials is a continuously expanding research field for chemists, biochemists, and biologists (e.g. formation of bones, teeth, kidney stones and shells). Our work on chiral crystal grinding, may provide important insight into polymorphism and co-crystallization that play critical roles in the solid-state properties of pharmaceuticals.