In 1990, Barry Trost presented an enantioselective synthesis of rocaglamide in 18 steps and confirmed its absolute configuration.
Enantiomer | enantiomer |
Another study demonstrates how racemic nicotine (mixture of S and R-enantiomers 1 in scheme 3) can be deracemized in a one-pot procedure involving a monoamine oxidase isolated from Aspergillus niger which is able to oxidize only the amine S-enantiomer to the imine 2 and involving an ammonia–borane reducing couple which can reduce the imine 2 back to the amine 1.
Although little was known about chemical chirality in the time of Lewis Carroll, his work Through the Looking-glass contains a prescient reference to the differing biological activities of enantiomeric drugs: "Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn't good to drink," Alice said to her cat.
Cathine (or D-norpseudoephedrine), the (+)-enantiomer and most widely known form of the compound