Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

A molecule is chiral if its mirror image cannot be superimposed onto itself. The thalidomide tragedy (drug-induced birth defects) in the late 1950s brought about worldwide awareness of the essential role of chirality in medicine. New drug regulations have been put into place, requiring both enantiomers of all chiral drugs to be assessed separately. As a result, enormous efforts are being devoted to synthesis, separation, analysis, and purification of chiral molecules. On the other hand, many developments, such as new drug design, still rely on trial and error, and further dramatic improvement can be expected by a systematic understanding of mechanisms of chirality recognition/transfer/amplification events. Our long-term objectives are to establish rigorous models with predictive power for these chiral events and to develop new strategies to control their outcomes. Recently, we discovered a new form of chiral Raman spectroscopy, i.e., eCP-Raman, and showed that previously published resonance Raman optical activity (RROA) data are severely contaminated. Our discovery journey serves also to caution that erroneous conclusions may happen easily as a result of wishful interpretation and limited data from a single type of experiment. Multiple spectroscopic techniques aided with theoretical calculations that can probe different molecular states, and thoughtful experimental designs will be integrated to provide a more complete picture of chiral events. To achieve our ultimate goals, we will pursue innovative research activities in three core areas: 1) By using a novel Two-Cell setup and multiple chiroptical techniques, we aim to unveil mechanisms of chirality transfer and amplification in chiral ionic liquids and when a chiral solute is under resonance. 2) One of our research flagships is using rotational spectroscopy to characterize chiral aggregates in detail. Using this approach, we will decode the role of chirality in inhalation anaesthetics with atomic resolution, and develop analytical chiral sensors for anaesthetics based on these results. We will further examine chirality recognition events at organic|water interfaces by utilizing a novel method recently developed by us. 3) We will apply a multi-spectroscopy-messenger approach to unravel the process of solvation by following the initial steps of solvation of small carbohydrates in the gas phase and connecting the gas phase results to the solution ones obtained by chiroptical tools. Our expertise in diverse chiral research areas gives us a significant edge in dissecting complex condensed phase phenomena with the gas phase inputs, and connecting all results to obtain a complete picture. Our research outcomes have already had noticeable impact on current developments of RROA theory and analytical chiral sensors. My research program will produce HQP with significant "hands-on" experience with chiral technologies, an area in high demand in the continuously expanding global chiral market.