Scientists can synthesize drugs and chemical derivatives through 3D printers

[ China Pharmaceutical Network Technology News ] At present, 3D printing has a wide range of applications. Cronin said: "Our approach will save the production efficiency of drugs that are in short supply, difficult to manufacture in the factory, and allow for a highly customized manufacturing approach." This also allows adjustments to be made in the commodity market with small, difficult to access The indispensable supply of medicines will enable more resources in remote areas.

In the near future, we may no longer have to go to the pharmacy to buy medicine when we are sick. By putting simple compounds into a bottled reaction unit, scientists have been able to synthesize drugs and various chemical derivatives through 3D printers. They say the technology digitizes chemical processes so that people can synthesize the various chemical materials they need in their lives.

“This will be a milestone achievement, and the experimental report of the technology will be extremely eye-catching,” said Fraser Stoddart, a Nobel laureate at Northwestern University and a participant in the study.

Currently, 3D printing has a wide range of applications. From shoes and auto parts to artificial blood vessels and weapon guns, there is no trace of 3D printing.

In recent years, scientists in Australia and Europe are at the forefront of the industry, using small instruments to make chemical reaction devices. According to Christian Hornung, a chemical engineer at Australian company CSIRO Manufacturing, these devices will become efficient and safe micro-industrial bases.

Coincidentally, Leroy Cronin, a chemist at the University of Glasgow in the UK, is also looking for an autonomous instrument that broadens the ability of non-professional users to synthesize drugs. In other words, the MP3 player liberated the music market in a digitally democratic way, and he wanted to open the drug market in a similar form.

In 2012, Cronin's article in Nature Chemistry achieved the first step of his plan. The article describes a machine that he named reactionware, which is a chemical reaction vessel containing catalysts and other components to ensure the occurrence of specific reactions. By adding the reactants, Cronin's team synthesized a wide variety of compound samples, including the cyclic organic compound ethylbenzene. However, Cronin admits that critics have doubted whether the method can produce highly complex compounds such as drugs. "I like to hear the voice of doubt," he said.

It turns out that his efforts have yielded results. In the new issue of Science, Cronin and his team released their latest printing method through a series of interlocking reaction vessels (these vessels are used for different reaction mechanisms such as filtration, distillation, and agitation). Complete 4 different chemical reactions in 12 steps. By adding the reactants in a specific order at a specific time, the instrument can prepare a simple material that is readily available into the muscle relaxant baclofen. If the reactants are exchanged for different reagents, other different types of drugs can be prepared, such as anti-caries drugs for the treatment of ulcers and acid reflux.

Cronin said: "Our approach will save the production efficiency of drugs that are in short supply, difficult to manufacture in the factory, and allow for a highly customized manufacturing approach." This also allows adjustments to be made in the commodity market with small, difficult to access The indispensable supply of medicines has enabled remote areas to access more resources, added by Hungung, a chemical engineer at CSIRO.

In addition, eliminating the safety hazards of employees in organic chemical plants is one of Cronin's goals. These chemists must operate in the steps of drug synthesis and are therefore exposed to chemicals. “Our manufacturing mechanism enables chemists to focus on research and find more medicinal molecules. This mechanism also allows biologists and neuroscientists to easily synthesize certain molecules with very short half-lives to meet their research. need."

But Hornung also expressed his concern about the technology: in this way, the threshold for the synthesis of dangerous drugs by criminals will be greatly reduced.

Cronin is convinced that the results of his research always outweigh the disadvantages. We cannot give up the chance to save lives because of the unknown risk. In the pharmaceutical industry, counterfeit and inferior drugs are a global problem. A significant portion of the retail drug ingredients have been moved by pharmaceutical manufacturers to replace the active ingredients with chemically similar substitutes and even hazardous compounds. In some developing countries, counterfeit drugs account for 30% of the market share, causing at least 200 billion annual losses to legitimate pharmaceutical companies. If you use reactionware, the risk of making fake drugs is greatly reduced, because each drug in the instrument is strictly produced.

However, how the law regulates this new type of pharmaceutical method still needs to be explored. If such machines are really going to market, the US Food and Drug Administration will need to rewrite their charters. Regulators need to ensure that reactionware produces effective and safe drugs, rather than regulating pharmaceutical manufacturers. Cronnin also acknowledged this drawback, but he still believes that the problem can be solved within a reasonable range, such as chemical testing of the product after synthesis to ensure that the product is not biased. Cronnin said: "I think this is feasible."

Original title: Soon, you can print your own medicine at home.