Results promising for computational quantum chemical methods for drug development

New research, led by a Virginia Tech chemist, may someday help natural-products chemists decrease by years the amount of time it takes for the development of certain types of medicinal drugs. The research by T. Daniel Crawford, associate professor of chemistry, involves computations of optical rotation angles on chiral—non-superimposable—molecules. The research titled, The Current State of ‘Ab Initio’ Calculations of Optical Rotation and Electronic Circular Dichcoism Spectra, appeared recently as the cover article in The Journal of Physical Chemistry A.