Dear Colleagues,

It is my great pleasure to announce the Special Issue “Helical Chirality in Chemistry, Materials Science and Biology”, which will appear in the  journal Molecules.

Chiral spiral and helical structures and shapes are widespread geometrical forms both in natural and in man-made structures, and are present in the morphology of many physical and biological systems. Indeed, the elegant three-dimensional shape is associated with various natural and unnatural items (objects, plants, and animals). Among these, representative and very different examples are the shape of human brain and of the mammalian cochlea, the snail shell, the spiraling of plants and of certain flowers, spiral galaxies, and the eye of a storm.

Spiral and helical structures and shapes show fundamental properties related to high levels of organization, including molecular, cellular, morphological, and functional. Indeed, it is known that through the utilization of the DNA double helix, nature has conceived one of the most brilliant and elegant ways to store, transfer, and express genetic information in living systems.

All these examples demonstrate that nature utilizes the aesthetically appealing helix to optimize both function and utilization of space.

Chiral helical molecules have always stimulated great interest within the scientific community due to their challenging synthetic aspects and manifold properties which arise from the combination of the chemical structure and spatial arrangement. This is why systems endowed with helical chirality have found applications in many and diverse research fields, such as material sciences, biology, and in a more general sense, in chemistry (e.g., catalysis).

The present Special Issue aims to collect original research papers and review articles demonstrating recent developments in the synthesis and highlighting the properties of helical chiral organic molecules as well as their application, with a special focus on material sciences and biology.

I strongly encourage scientists active in the field of helical chiral molecules to contribute to this Special Issue.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• helical systems
• helical-shaped materials
• helicenes
• chiral biaryl systems
• chiral sensors
• helix in biology
• chiral recognition