| Research group leader |
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| Dr Ashraf Ghanem |
| Chirality Research Group at UC |
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| Research group |
Between
1958 and 1962, thousands of babies across the Western world were unaccountably born with a plethora of physical deformities,
including short or absent limbs, ears and eyes, holes in the heart, blocked intestines, and/or absence or duplication of other
internal organs. - See more at: http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/sydneypublishing/2014/01/the_thalidomide_story.html#sthash.wpnMHAVT.dpuf
In early 60’s, in particular between 1958 and 1962, thousands of babies across the Western
world were unaccountably born with fatal malformation of arms and legs. A plethora of physical deformities, including short
or absent limbs, ears and eyes, holes in the heart, blocked intestines, and/or absence or duplication of other internal organs
were dominant. It was found that mothers of phocomelic babies had taken a drug called “Contergan” prescribed to
treat morning sickness. The active ingredient of this drug was a chemical compound called “thalidomide” (in picture
below). Thalidomide has a chiral center and hence it exsist in space in two forms, one is looking to the right and the second
is looking to the left. Both are similar in chemical structure. One form (+)-(R)-for the desired sedative effect and the second
(-)-(S)- causes serious fatal malformations of arms and legs. It appears that the desired form has interconverted into the
undesired form in pregnant women.Our research gp is working to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again by delivering
safer medicine. We develop environmentally benign and economically feasible microsystems to split both forms so that only
the desired form is used. This research is called “Chirality” (an object and its mirror image). Since 2008 thalidomide
has been authorised to be used to treat a particular type of cancer (multiple myeloma) and it is now also authorised for the
treatment of a complication of leprosy (erythema nodosum leprosum).
| Thalidomide tragedy |
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| Thalidomide ....a part of a global medical disaster. Source: The Daily Telegraph |
| AustralianThalidomide victims |
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| Australian Thalidomide victims to share massive settlement |
| Mirror image of Thalidomide |
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| German Magazine |
-Our group has interest
in the development of new chemical production routes and products that consume less of the resources of nature and minimize
risks on human health and our environment either during manufacturing or during or after functional use of the chemicals.
Our routes include non-conventional flash chemistry process where the miniaturization of the catalytic reactions and chiral
analysis are performed in integrated systems of micro-reactors for chiral drug development and combinatorial approaches. Our
approaches to access enantiomerically pure compounds include enzyme and metal catalysis. This is followed by chiral analysis
to assess the enantiomeric purity of the product using GC, HPLC and CE equipped with new chiral stationary phases consisting
of polymer and silica monolith.
