Development of the future generation of catalysts for asymmetric reduction

Look at your hands, now try to superimpose them and you will see that they are non-superimposable mirror images. A large proportion of pharmacologically- active compounds also exist in two mirror-image forms (enantiomers), which will often exhibit dramatically different biological properties: one might be a valuable drug, whilst the other might be highly toxic. This is because all living things are made of building blocks with single handedness as well. The most economically and environmentally sound approach to produce 'single-handed' drugs is by using 'single-handed' catalysts (compounds that, although used in minute amounts, allow chemical transformations to occur). Johnson Matthey, a world leader in industrial catalysts, and Prof. M. Wills (University of Warwick) will develop a range of new catalysts, based on the highly promising design developed by Wills group. These catalysts are expected to become the benchmark in this technology area for the next 10 to 15 years.