molecular manufacturing
Just add water
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On-demand pharmaceutical manufacturing
US researchers have been working on a molecular manufacturing method that can produce a broad range of biomolecules anywhere in the world, without power or refrigeration. The result is a ‘just add water’ solution that affordably, rapidly and precisely generates compounds that could be administered as therapies or used in experiments and diagnostics.
“T
The new method employs two types of freeze-dried pellets containing different kinds of components. The first kind of pellet contains the cell-free ‘machinery’ that will synthesise the he ability to synthesise and
end product. The second kind contains DNA
administer biomolecular compounds anywhere
instructions that will tell the ‘machinery’ what
could undoubtedly shift the reach of medicine and
compound to manufacture. When the two
science across the world,” said Dr James Collins,
types of pellets are combined and rehydrated
senior author on the study. The work was led by
with water, the biomolecular manufacturing
Dr Collins’ team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for
process is triggered. The second type of pellet
Biologically Inspired Engineering and has been
can be customised to produce a wide range of
published in the journal Cell.
final products.
‘Portable biomolecular manufacturing’, as the
Compounds manufactured using the method
work has been dubbed by Dr Collins’ team, hinges
could be administered in several ways to a patient,
on the idea that freeze-dried pellets containing
including via injection, oral doses or topical
‘molecular machinery’ can be mixed and matched
application. Furthermore, the technology is
to achieve a wide variety of products. By simply
applicable to a wide variety of applications. For
adding water, this molecular machinery can be set
example, since antibodies are increasingly being
in motion. The approach builds on work described
used to treat microbial infections and diseases
in a 2014 paper where the team demonstrated that
ranging from cancer to immune disorders, the
transcription and translation machinery could
researchers used their system to create a portable,
function in vitro, without being inside living
modular toolbox for making designer antibodies
cells, inside freeze-dried slips of ordinary paper
against a variety of disease-relevant targets. This
embedded with synthetic gene networks.
included one that could neutralise C. difficile
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