Cool site of the day - The Chirality Game

The Cool Site of the day is http://nobelprize.org/

 

In the year 2001, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2001 for the development of catalytic asymmetric synthesis, with one half jointly to William S. Knowles and Ryoji Noyori "for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions" and the other half to K. Barry Sharpless "for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions".

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001 is about molecules that exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other. This property is named "chirality". Often it is important to produce only one of these forms because the molecules, despite being so similar, have quite different functions, in our cells, for example.

Play the Chirality Game  

 

Learn more about chirality:

 

Nature is chiral

What is catalytic asymmetric synthesis? 

How does a chiral molecule function?

Chemistry becomes three-dimensional

Pioneering work 

General hydrogenations 

Chirally catalysed oxidations

Further reading

 

Source:  http://nobelprize.org/ 

(Based on materials from the 2001 Nobel Poster for Chemistry)

 

On the same subject, you can also enjoy "Chirality & Odour Perception":

http://www.leffingwell.com/chirality/chirality.htm 

 

 

Laura Cipollina - IBIOCAT, Divisione Marketing e Commerciale