ERC grant for Noelia Barrabés: The chemistry of mirror images

A molecule and its mirror image often behave quite differently. Noelia Barrabés is investigating how the formation of such molecules can be explained and controlled and has now been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant with the project HAND. Many molecules exist in two different variants that are mirror images of each other, like our right and left hand. They are called chiral molecules. They consist of exactly the same atoms, but can behave completely differently in medical applications, for example. It is extremely difficult to understand how one chirality or the other arises during the formation of such molecules. Both variants are formed from the same building blocks at the same temperatures and under the same external conditions.