Advanced Molecular ENantiodiscrimination

Introduction

Enantiodiscrimination is one of the major challenges in contemporary chemistry. Chiral molecules exist in two non-superimposable mirror image forms, which induce different effects in biological systems. Thus, they need to be produced in a stereoselective way, especially for pharmaceutical use.

Motivation and Societal Relevance

The motivation and societal relevance of this project is based on the fact that if the wrong enantiomers are present in pharmaceuticals, their effects can be toxic or even lethal. This has been exemplified by the scandal around the use of racemic mixtures of thalidomide in the 1960s. Subsequently, it became obvious, and strongly recommended by the FDA and European legislation, that medication should contain pure enantiomers.

Need for Advanced Technologies

Therefore, there is a strong and constantly increasing need to develop advanced technologies that allow a selective production of enantiomers by new synthesis strategies. This challenge is at the heart of the AMEN project.

Project Concept

We plan to follow an unconventional concept, developed during the ERC Advanced grant ELECTRA, in order to obtain single enantiomers instead of racemic mixtures. This is achieved by directing the transformation of molecules towards one of the two possible enantiomers with the help of autonomously moving chiral microreactors.

Validation and Next Steps

The fundamental strategy has been already validated with proof-of-principle experiments during the ERC Advanced project and showed extremely high selectivity, efficiency, and controllability, however only at the laboratory scale.

As a next logical step with technology transfer character, we plan to investigate in detail the possibility of scaling up this process and to evaluate its commercial viability and competitiveness.