Cargo-towing Highly enantioselective Electro-pumps: unconventional asymmetrIc Readout and transmission of chiral information (CHEIR)

Chirality is found throughout nature, but it occupies a special place in chemistry, perhaps for historical reasons, but mainly as a resultof the beneficial properties of chiral molecules across a diverse range of areas, from medicine to materials science. The global aim ofCHEIR is to achieve with unprecedented efficiency the propagation of chiral information along different length scales, based on thesynergy of well-chosen molecular ingredients and physicochemical engineering. The artificial systems here involved can be consideredas models for the transmission of chiral information through space. Such ambitious aim could be achieved developing a cargo-towingelectro-pump based on chiral conducting polymers for targeted drug-delivery applications. The combination of four main ingredients,electric field and magnetic field (externally applied), electrical conductivity and enantiodiscrimination capability (intrinsic features ofthe object), makes these innovative miniaturized bipolar soft pumps perfect candidates for a multipurpose asymmetric detection. Insuch scenario inherent chirality can provide the breakthrough. It implies chirality and key functional properties to originate from thesame structural element endowing the selector with extraordinary chirality manifestations that can be propagated from molecular levelto the macroscopic one. Unprecedented recognition, in terms of energy differences, was recently observed, implementing inherentlychiral materials as enantiopure electrode surfaces. Recently, attractive potentialities of these systems were also exploited in the field ofbipolar electrochemistry and in the one of autonomous swimmers allowing to correlate the output signal with the concentration of theenantiomers present in solution. Such striking performance will prepare for the development of innovative systems with high impact inanalytical, biological and pharmaceutical fields considering the project interdisciplinarity.