A team of professors at the Boston College Chemistry Department have developed a small molecule catalyst they say can significantly streamline the production of therapeutics and chemicals. The essence of their work focused on the mirror-image molecules that are present in chemical compounds. One of those two hands, or enantiomers, can be harmful. The team--led by Amir Hoveyda and Marc Snapper--developed a "silylation catalyst" so that only one hand is formed, reducing the number of steps in the process from five to one.

"This is an elegant solution to a very important, practical problem, with the potential to result in more efficient, more environmentally friendly, and less expensive processes for manufacturing drugs," said John M. Schwab, a chemist at the National Institute of General Medical Science, which supported the work.

- read this report [1] on the catalyst from the Royal Society of Chemistry