Giving molecules a new twist

Sander Wezenberg, who works at the University of Groningen’s Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, received a prestigious Veni grant from NWO this summer. Wezenberg is planning to study ‘molecular handedness’. Many molecules in nature have a non-superimposable mirror image (left and right-handedness). In other words, they are chiral. The relationship between the left and right-handed molecules appears to influence certain important biological functions. Wezenberg is planning to develop chemical methods for determining and influencing chiral relationships.

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