Glasgow Researchers Developing "Chemputer" That Could 3D Print Drugs

Two years ago, when Professor Lee Cronin was invited to an architectural seminar to present his work on inorganic structures, he first discovered the concept of 3D printers and today he is getting closer to developing a 3D printer that would work on a molecular level to print drugs.

Cronin's version of the £1,200 3D printer uses a bathroom sealant as the primary substance to print reaction chambers of precisely specified dimensions, connected with tubes of different lengths and diameters. To this setup, the printer could then inject system reactants, or "chemical inks", to obtain sequenced reactions.

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Unlike normal printer, the 'inks' in this "chemputer" are simple reagents which would serve as "ingredients" to form more complex molecules. Cronin points out that most drugs are a mixture of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, as well as easily available agents such as vegetable oils and paraffin. All these reagents could then be fixed as inks to make almost any molecule.

Though Cronin's "chemputer" does more than mixing inks; the prototype system exhibits an ability to control the environment in which the reactions take place. In this way, the ratio and speed which play an equal role in chemical reactions can be integrated into the system. Currently the team of researchers is working on simple drugs like ibuprofen, the success of which will determine further advances, with a good probability of impacting our lives in a historic way.

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