Dilip Kondepudi is supported by a grant from the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Program to perform experimental and theoretical studies of auto catalytic and stochastic kinetics of crystallization. He plans to study the fundamental aspects of spontaneous generation, propagation and amplification of chiral asymmetry. Kondepudi has discovered that stirred solutions of sodium chlorite crystallize with nearly 100% either dextro- or levorotatory crystals. His research program has been directed at attempting to model and explain this phenomenon of spontaneous generation of chiral symmetry. He has shown that the amplification arises as a non-linear process caused by secondary nucleation after the breakup of a small crystallite in the stirring process. He plans to extend the experiments in new directions, particularly with regard to primary and secondary nucleation studies of amino acids. It is well known that for many drug compounds only one enantiomer is biologically active, and in some well known cases the other enantiomer may have deleterious side effects including genetic damage. Understanding of physical and chemical processes that generate chiral asymmetry may be of great practical value in improving methods to produce enantiomerically pure compounds.
