JASCO Honored with the 2007 Japanese Molecular Chirality Award

The Molecular Chirality Research Organization (MCRO) held its annual Molecular Chirality Symposium on May 15-16 at the Tokyo University of Science in Tokyo, Japan. Since 1999, the organization has presented an award to honor those internationally recognized scientists and companies who have made distinguished contributions in the field of molecular chirality. A beautifully designed bronze sculpture titled “Hand in Art” goes to the recognized recipients. On May 15, this year’s honors went to Professor Hiroshi Tsukube, Osaka City University, and to JASCO.

Approximately 250 people attended the event with special guest lecturers such as Christopher Welch from Merck Research Laboratories in the USA and Josep M. Ribo from the University of Barcelona, Spain. Quite a few other resident scientists participated as well.

The Symposium on Molecular Chirality was initiated by the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan in 1992 to promote progress in the pharmaceutical sciences dealing with chiral drugs. It was held under the auspices of the Chemical Society of Japan and six other Japanese scientific societies. The participation has grown over the years to include a diverse range of disciplines such as organic synthesis, natural products, pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, polymer chemistry, and many others.

The bronze award is a sculpture of a lady’s hand, designed to signify “chirality” a derivation of the Greek word meaning “handedness.” Chirality describes the state of a molecule with isomers that mirror each other. Dr. Shoji Hara, Emeritus Professor at the Tokyo University of Pharmacology and Life Sciences, explained at the meeting that if someone should win the award a second time, a left hand will be sculpted to complete the chirality story, which should encourage people to strive for this achievement again.

JASCO is an analytical instrument manufacturer based in Hachioji, Japan, with offices worldwide. JASCO specializes in the field of spectroscopy and chromatography products, including its world-renowned Circular Dichroism spectrometers, FT-IR, Raman, UV-Vis/NIR, Polarimeters, Fluorescence, HPLC, SFE/SFC, and X-LC (High- Performance LC).