Chirality

Chirality refers to the property of an object that cannot be superimposed on its mirror image. Think of your left and right hands; they look alike but are not the same—this is chirality. In chemistry, many molecules have chirality, meaning they can exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other, called enantiomers. These different forms can have very different properties and behaviors, especially in biological systems. For example, one enantiomer of a drug might be therapeutic, while the other could be ineffective or harmful. Chirality plays a crucial role in fields like drug design and molecular biology.