Scientists from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Chemistry have revealed a new sustainable method of manufacturing complex molecules that could reduce waste produced during drug production.
The method published in Nature Chemistry could help to prevent severe side effects caused by drugs that can exist as enantiomers, such as thalidomide, which was prescribed to pregnant women in the 1950s.
Enantiomers, otherwise known as left- and right-handed versions, are a pair of chiral molecules that exist in two forms that are mirror images of one another but cannot be superimposed one upon the other. In every other respect, they are chemically identical.
