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[Matt]

Nano World: Nano to speed drug discovery

Published March 4, 2005
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Nanotechnology soon could speed the discovery of blockbuster drugs, cutting down the roughly eight to 12 years and $900 million it takes currently to develop a new pharmaceutical, experts told UPI's Nano World

new drug addressing a disease previously without an effective remedy has the potential to generate a revenue of $1 billion per year. It is a classic winner-take-all industry, as the first mover with a revolutionary new drug usually takes over 75 percent of the market -- even years after initial discovery," said Nelesh Patel, an associate analyst with NanoMarkets, a research firm in Sterling, Va

The common procedure for researching a new drug involves first testing promising molecules on proteins and other compounds found on the surfaces of bacteria or other targets linked to a disease, then selecting out the most effective and safest-looking candidates.
   
using current microarray technologies, researchers can analyze thousands of microscopic quantities of drugs at once.

Now nanotechnology promises to exponentially increase even the volume of microarrays by working at a level far smaller than conventional microarrays.

BioForce NanoSciences in Ames, Iowa, for instance, has developed a nanoarray "that can actually measure interactions between individual molecules, down to resolutions of as little as 1 nanometer," or billionth of a meter, Patel said. "The nanometer-scale resolution capabilities of the technology offer many advantages in the emerging field of functional proteomics" -- the study of proteins.

Along the same line as nanoarrays are nanofluidic devices, which act as infinitesimal labs-on-a-chip. Current microfluidic devices mix microscopic amounts of fluids together, just as a chemist would mix chemicals in a beaker, with the aim of creating often-precious enzymes or other valuable molecules. Microfluidic devices automate mixing and scale it down so it happens thousands of times simultaneously   

"In a similar manner to microarrays, microfluidic systems offer several advantages," Patel said, including "decreased sample volumes, reduction in the amount of required reagents, reduction in waste, easy automation, and potentially massive parallel processing of laboratory samples.
   
The increase in automation that nanoarrays and nanofluidic devices allow should speed drug discovery and also reduce the need for an expert lab staff, he added.

Murdock said he thinks big pharma companies are "only beginning to turn their eyes towards the possibilities nanotech offers in drug discovery."
   
Patel agreed. "I feel that in the next two to three years, all the major pharma and biotech companies will make substantial investments in nanotechnology to facilitate the drug discovery process," he said.