Sharpless pegs the beginnings of his inquisitive nature that spirited his prize-winning research on the long summer days spent at the New Jersey shore fishing or seining for crabs. Be it snapping turtle, eel, or even coelacanth, Sharpless always hoped for a new and outlandish catch, and today he continues to look for new reactivity and conduct chemistry the way he used to fish.1 His research on chirally-catalyzed oxidation reactions is no fish story, however.
Chiral molecules or enantiomers are mirror-image molecules having identical compositions but a three-dimensional structure as different as your right and left hands. Sorting such molecules or selectively producing one structure over another had proven a difficult challenge for pharmaceutical companies, but crucial to overcome considering the nature of such distinctions. Tuberculosis fighting ethambutol, for example, has a mirror image twin that causes blindness.
Working with such people as Bob Michaelson at Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...
