Understanding chiral amplification and chiral interactions in conglomerate crystals

路易·巴斯德最出名的是“巴斯德杀菌法”，通常与牛奶有关，但巴斯德对化学的贡献可能更深远。1848年，巴斯德仅凭肉眼观察就分离出酒石酸铵的镜象晶体，并在此过程中开创了分子不对称的有趣话题。手性，或用手，是我们日常生活的一部分，它的重要性在制药工业、农用化学品工业和食品工业中尤为明显。手性技术产品的全球市场预计到2017年将达到51亿美元。生物分子对一手的手性偏好是生命系统的一个特征，但生物同源性的起源是当今科学家面临的突出谜团之一，还没有找到确切的解释。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不对称的影响，导致了益生菌世界中手性分子的起源。诸如此类的推测吸引了人们对手性晶体的极大关注。在我们的实验室中，我们正在打破镜像对称性，使用一种简单的研磨技术来创建只有一只手的手性晶体(同手性)。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性破缺现象。我们将使用经典的晶体生长技术以及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。这项研究不仅对同质起源有令人兴奋的影响，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(例如骨骼、牙齿、肾结石和贝壳的形成)的一个不断扩大的研究领域。我们在手性晶体研磨方面的工作，可能会为我们提供对药物固态性质起关键作用的多晶性和共结晶性的重要见解。

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.