Professor Eric Anslyn has developed a new technique for rapidly identifying and optimizing chiral catalysts, like those used in pharmaceuticals and pesticides.
Professor Anslyn's technique will allow for rapid identification of catalysts to carry out syntheses of chemicals of a certain enantiometric form, or "handedness". While the synthesis of these chemicals is extremely important in industry, until now there has been no way of quickly identifying catalysts to synthesize them.
The technique is based on a colorimteric assay in a 96-well plate and relys on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Professor Anslyn sees this technique as a way to get around the limitations of using chiral HPLC.
Learn more about research in the Anslyn Group.