The Chirality Paradox

L-DOPA is the best drug we have for Parkinson’s disease. If you take L-DOPA and reflect it in a mirror, you get a different molecule: D-DOPA, which does absolutely nothing for Parkinson’s and causes potentially deadly side effects. Making just L-DOPA without D-DOPA is surprisingly hard – so hard that the person who finally figured out how to do it won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

00:00 Intro
00:35 Chirality
02:25 Racemic drugs
02:44 Parkinson’s disease
03:56 Option 2
07:02 The 2001 Nobel
09:03 Turtles all the way down
#ParkinsonsDisease #Parkinsons #LDOPA #DDOPA #Chirality #Enantiomers #NobelPrizeChemistry #DrugSynthesis #PharmaceuticalChemistry #Pharma #ChemicalReactions #Chemistry #OriginsOfLife #TurtlesAllTheWayDown

Credits:
Executive Producer:
Matthew Radcliff

Producers:
Andrew Sobey
Elaine Seward
Darren Weaver

Writers:
George Zaidan

Hosts:
George Zaidan

Scientific Consultants:
Eric Jacobsen Ph.D.
Brianne Raccor, Ph.D.
Michelle Boucher, Ph.D.

Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell

Reactions is a production of the American Chemical Society.
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Sources:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_...