Chiroptical Techniques

Dear Colleagues,

As we all know, chirality plays a cruical role in the chemistry of living systems, since the macromolecules involved in the life processes are chiral. Therefore, proteins are often able to discriminate between enantiomers, which, among other things, has consequences for chiral compounds with pharmacological activity, where the enantiomers may show large differences in uptake, action, and metabolization. As a result, chiroptical techniques for studies and characterization of optically active compounds have become of great importance and today a multitude of methods based on the use of chiral light exist. Some of these can be coupled to enantioselective chromatographic separation techniques and used for detection, others can be used together with results from theoretical calculations of spectra for the determination of absolute configuration or -conformation. Of great interest here is the use of infrared radiation to study vibrational optical activity (VOA) and particularly the use of vibrational CD (VCD), since here the number of useful optically active transitions is larger than in electronic CD (ECD). Ab initio calculations of VCD spectra are also easier to perform. Thus, the variety of chiroptical techniques available or under development today has catalyzed stereochemical research and the instrumentation is continuously improved.

This Special Issue on Chiroptical Techniques is intended to attract researchers dealing with optically active compounds who want to contribute their latest results to the forum of Molecules. It is my hope that a good deal of interesting papers will be submitted that will reflect the potential and rapid development of the use of chiroptical techniques for studies in the chemical and associated fields.

Dr. Stig Allenmark
Guest Editor