In news

Scientists have now found a clue to determine how self-assembled structures can be made using a strange class of particles that do not interact and have non-superimposable mirror images (chiral)

Chirality

Chirality essentially means 'mirror-image, non-superimposable molecules', and to say that a molecule is chiral is to say that its mirror image (it must have one) is not the same as it self. Whether a molecule is chiral or achiral depends upon a certain set of overlapping conditions.

Experiment

• By investigating the role of chiral activity, a group of scientists have for the first time shown that objects can self-recognize even when their shape is not chiral.
  
• This is the first experimental study to uncover that even when objects are not chiral in shape, chirality inactivity alone can bring about selectivity and recognition between the interacting particles.
• The scientists said that by exploiting 3D printing to design chiral active matter, they can systematically encode different extents of chiral activity and explore its consequences on the emergent dynamical behaviour.
• Chirality-mediated selective interactions are of utmost importance in asymmetric catalysis, supramolecular polymerization, medicinal drug designing, and separation where self-recognition, sorting, and discrimination of molecules are required.

Source: PIB