Laurence_D._Barron

Laurence David Barron (born 12 February 1944 in Southampton, England) has been Gardiner Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow since 1998 (now Emeritus). He is a chemist who has conducted pioneering research into the properties of chiral (right- or left-handed) molecules — defined by Lord Kelvin as those that cannot be superimposed onto their mirror image. By extending this definition of chirality to include moving particles and processes that vary with time, he has made a fundamental theoretical contribution to the field. Chiral molecules such as amino acids, sugars, proteins, and nucleic acids play a central role in the chemistry of life, and many drug molecules are chiral. Laurence's work on Raman optical activity — a spectroscopic technique capable of determining the three-dimensional structures of chiral molecules, which he predicted, observed, and applied to problems at the forefront of chemistry and structural biology — has led to its development as a powerful analytical tool used in academic and industrial laboratories worldwide. His much-cited book, Molecular Light Scattering and Optical Activity, has contributed to the growing impact of chirality on many areas of modern science.