How can you tell the chirality of a Carbon in a compound?

1 Answer
Jul 28, 2016

Its absolute configuration can only be determined by a specialized X-Ray diffraction experiment......

Explanation:

......but its relative configuration can be accessed by its rotation of plane-polarized light.

Of course, most of the time, we deal with racemic mixtures. It is only towards the end of a drug synthesis that the stereoisomers are resolved, and their biological activities are assessed. Different diastereomers will have different biological activities. This is an area which drug developers must take very seriously.