Smart Medicine and Chirality

Fundamental research

In 2016, Ben Feringa won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the revolutionary design of a nanomotor: a molecular machine many times thinner than a human hair. Molecular machines are extremely small motors that could lead to groundbreaking innovations in the fields of smart materials, medical technology or energy storage. Thanks to a donation from an anonymous donor, the UEF is enabling a new project for Professor Feringa that builds on his award-winning work. The new project consists of two parts:

1: Chirality: the mystery of the origin of life

2: Photopharmacology: new applications of smart medicines

Chirality and the signature of life

Molecules are the building blocks of all the substances we know. They are also chiral, a term derived from the Greek word ‘cheir’, meaning hand. Every molecule exists in two forms that are mirror images of each other, just like our own hands.

However, many molecules in the human body are either left-handed (DNA and sugars) or right-handed (proteins): they have a natural preference for one side. This phenomenon is called homochirality and is also known as the signature of life.

Homochirality is crucial for the functioning of our body: recognising molecules, processing information, or creating new cells would otherwise not be possible.

It is also one of the greatest mysteries facing science: no one knows why the essential building blocks of life are either left-handed or right-handed. An answer to this question would open up a vast array of new possibilities for innovations in medical technology, construction engineering or sustainability in the chemical industry.

Photopharmacology: Smart medicines

Smart medicines are seen as the medicines of the future. They contain bioactive substances that can be switched on and off using light.

Professor Feringa is a global pioneer in this field: as early as 2011, he developed antibiotics that can be switched on and off. This enables much more effective treatment because the effect can be precisely targeted at the site of inflammation. In a similar way, a drug could be developed in the future that can combat tumour cells with high precision.

This technology also allows the exact moment at which a drug becomes active to be determined in advance. Professor Feringa’s research, for example, makes chemotherapy treatment conceivable without the severe side effects typically associated with it.