Where Surface Chirality Measurements Could Go Next

Garth Simpson, who is a Tarpo Professor of Chemistry at Purdue University, says his group’s next step is to keep interrogating different molecular systems to learn how common the behavior they have observed really is. He does not believe they have yet found the one system that behaves this way, and he wants to gauge how many different classes of ordered assemblies can be studied with their approach.

Beyond that survey, Simpson sees a range of possible applications, starting from the general observation that chirality at surfaces is everywhere. One area is surface-immobilized enzymes, where the performance of a synthetic route depends on the stability and efficacy of the immobilized protein. Melting curves are one common way to assess this, but Simpson noted they cannot confirm that the signal comes only from proteins at the interface. An interface-specific, sensitive chiral characterization method could let researchers compare how protein architectures are optimized specifically for surface immobilization in enzyme reactors.

He also points to reactions in which an analyte is immobilized and built up one segment at a time, such as the manufacture of oligonucleotides on resins. These processes could potentially be studied with spectroscopic methods that are both chiral-specific and surface-specific, and his group is interested in pursuing them.

The application Simpson finds most scientifically intriguing is chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS). In CISS, reactions such as the oxygen evolution reaction, a reaction central to water splitting, show a spin selectivity. Understanding and exploiting that effect could make such reactions more efficient, which he describes as a significant opportunity for energy production.

Finally, Simpson turns to the question he expects will resonate most at the Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS): whether this work can become an analytical method. He wants to know if the approach can be used to interrogate chiral interactions and chiral synthetic processes at interfaces, as a way to understand the nature of chemical reactions at surfaces. For an audience of analytical chemists, that question links the group’s fundamental research directly to practical measurement science.

Further Reading

1. Purdue University, Garth J. Simpson. Purdue University, 2026. https://www.chem.purdue.edu/people/profile/gsimpson.html (accessed November 3, 2026).
2. Wetzel, W.; Spectroscopy Staff. EAS 2026 to Mark 65th Anniversary with Program Focused on AI and Data Integrity. Spectroscopy Online, 2026. https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/eas-2026-to-mark-65th-anniversary-with-program-focused-on-ai-and-data-integrity (accessed November 3, 2026).