Stereochemistry

Stereochemistry, a subdiscipline of chemistry, studies the spatial arrangement of atoms that form the structure of molecules and their manipulation.

In 1874, Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and Joseph Le Bel explained optical activity in terms of the tetrahedral arrangement of the atoms bound to carbon.

Kekulé explored tetrahedral models earlier, in 1862, but never published his work; Emanuele Paternò probably knew of these but was the first to draw and discuss three dimensional structures, such as of 1,2-dibromoethane in the Giornale di Scienze Naturali ed Economiche in 1869.

Arthur Robertson Cushny, a Scottish Pharmacologist, first provided a clear example in 1908 of a bioactivity difference between enantiomers of a chiral molecule viz.

(-)-Adrenaline is two times more potent than the (±)- form as a vasoconstrictor and in 1926 laid the foundation for chiral pharmacology/stereo-pharmacology[5][6] (biological relations of optically isomeric substances).

Thalidomide is a pharmaceutical drug, first prepared in 1957 in Germany, prescribed for treating morning sickness in pregnant women.

The drug was discovered to be teratogenic, causing serious genetic damage to early embryonic growth and development, leading to limb deformation in babies.

[11][12] Atropisomerism derives from the inability to rotate about a bond, such as due to steric hindrance between functional groups on two sp2-hybridized carbon atoms.