Bjoern Reinhard Awarded 3 Year National Science Foundation Research Grant

apchd5_v002i007-e1436968544782 (1)Dr. Reinhard recently received 3 Years of research funding for his proposal titled: “OP: Plasmonic Enhancement of Chiral Forces for Enantiomer Separation.”

An object is chiral if it cannot be mapped to its mirror image by rotations and translations alone. Chiral molecules can exist a priori in two nonsuperimposable mirror images, that is, enantiomeric forms. Enantiomers can differ in their chemical behavior and reactivity, which can have drastic consequences. In drugs, for instance, one enantiomer may have a desired physiologic effect, while the other enantiomer can be inactive or even harmful. The most infamous example is thalidomide (“contergan”), for which one enantiomer is an effective sedative, whereas the other is teratogen. Administration of the racemic mix to pregnant women led to the birth of thousands of children with malformed limbs. This example illustrates the need for highly sensitive detection and especially separation of chiral biomolecules in research and drug development.

The proposal will help develop a new general separation scheme that uses chiral light matter interactions enhanced by resonant plasmonic antennas to separate enantiomers through discriminatory chiral forces acting on different enantiomers. The new technique will have important analytical and preparative applications. It will facilitate both to monitor the enantiomeric purity of chiral species and provide the means to separate enantiomeric or diastereomeric mixtures.

Congratulations to Dr. Reinhard and his Group on this award!