In the early 1960s, the Thalidomide drug scare caused thousands of worldwide infant deaths and birth defects from a morning sickness medicine for expectant mothers. The disaster transformed drug regulation systems, and changed the pharmaceutical industry’s understanding of chiral properties: the notion that molecules with otherwise identical properties are in fact mirror images, like your right and left hands. Missouri S&T materials science and engineering doctoral student Meagan Kelso wasn’t even close to being born when the chiral consequences of Thalidomide first became apparent nearly 60 years ago. But the drug industry’s continued efforts to fine-tune how it first identifies and then separates chiral compounds is driving the native Texan’s Ph.D. research.