"From antibiotics to beta-blockers, many of the medicines we use every day are safer and more effective because of this important chemistry research. By singling out the more effective form of mirror-image molecules, these chemists have made it easier to advance treatments — so much so that these pharmaceuticals reached $133 billion in sales last year alone. We're proud to count them among the members of the world's largest scientific society."
Nina McClelland, chair of the American Chemical Society's Board of Directors, also is president of McClelland Consulting Services, a Michigan-based management, chemical, and environmental consulting company. ACS is the world's largest scientific society, with 163,000 member chemists and chemical engineers.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Drug compounds generally have mirror images, known as being right- and left-handed, but often only one of the "hands" is biologically active, delivering the desired pharmacological agents. Drugs containing "both hands" are called racemic. If a drug can be made one-handed, or chiral, it generally means that smaller doses are needed and it avoids potential side effects that might be contributed from the other hand.
Available for background information is an October 2001 article from Chemical & Engineering News on developments in chiral chemistry used in pharmaceutical development. Reporters can access the article on the Web at http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/7940/7940chiral.html, or call the ACS News Service at 202-872-4451 for a faxed copy.
Nobel laureate William S. Knowles was honored in 1982 with the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention. Laureate Ryoji Noyori has received the ACS Arthur C. Cope Senior Scholar Award in 1996, the Arthur C. Cope Award in 1997, and the Roger Adams Award in Organic Chemistry in 2001. Laureate K. Barry Sharpless was honored in 1983 with the ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, the 1986 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, the 1992 Arthur C. Cope Award, and the 1997 Roger Adams Award in Organic Chemistry.
ADDITIONAL SOURCES
Please call the ACS News Service at 202-872-4451, or the above contacts for information about additional sources.