Chirality is intimately associated to the function of most of these
biological molecules or molecular assemblies, since most of these molecules are chiral,
and in the majority of the cases, only one of the two enantiomers exists as
a functional entity. We are particularly interested in the chiral self assembly of lipidic molecules: under certain conditions, such molecules can self assemble to a variety of aggregates and mesophases that express the chirality of their
constituent molecules (angstroms) at a supramolecular (nanometres up to micrometers)
level. Our approach consists of inducing supramolecular chirality with the
assemblies of non-chiral amphiphiles complexed with chiral counterions. The
morphologies of these nano/micrometric chiral assemblies can be finely tuned
by the variation of molecular as well as external parameters at nano to
micrometer scale.. The link between molecular organization and the
supramolecular structure raises extremely important questions in terms of polymorphisms
which exist in living systems.