Your point on complexity is well taken. I'd just like to recommend against using thalidomide as an example of chiral effects. Rather unusually, thalidomide has

Your point on complexity is well taken. I'd just like to recommend against using thalidomide as an example of chiral effects. Rather unusually, thalidomide has a nitrogen atom as its chiral center. As such, it rapidly racemizes (interconverts) at physiological pH. This makes the claim of stereospecific teratogenicity a bit puzzling as it shouldn't be possible to resolve by administering enantiopure thalidomide. The mechanistic story of thalidomide is a bit complicated. Ultimately the mouse and rat models used couldn't possibly predict teratogencitiy as these models have an amino acid mutation (valine -> isoleucine) that prevents binding of thalidomide to Cereblon, the protein that mediates thalidomide's teratogencitiy [0]. Amazingly, although this story is oft-repeated, its origins are unclear. This is likely the origin of the myth [1], but knowing what we know now these results should be impossible. [0] https://elifesciences.org/articles/38430 https://elifesciences.org/articles/38430 [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/583234/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/583234/