Nano processes accelerate the search for anticancer drugs

Researchers at Wake Forest University use nanotechnology to search for new anti-cancer drugs through a process that can be 10,000 times faster than current methods.

The 'Lab-on-Bead' process will scan millions of chemicals at the same time using tiny plastic particles, 1000 such particles are just as thick as a human hair. Each particle contains a separate chemical that will be identified later if it shows the properties needed for cancer treatment. The use of these nanoparticles could replace thousands of conventional repetitive experiments.

Jed Macosko, project director and physics professor at Wake Forest, explains: 'This process allows nanoparticles to do the job for you. By working on such a small scale, we will be able to scan billions of medicines every day, not the current limit of hundreds of thousands per day '.

The physics professors at Wake Forest University (from left to right) Martin Guthold, Keith Bonin and Jed Macasko work at Guthold's lab during the development of Lab-on-Bead, a search technique New drugs can be 10,000 times faster than current methods.(Photo: Wake Forest University).

Other team members at Wake Forest include Martin Guthold, professor of physics, and Keith Bonin, professor and head of physics.

Macosko said the research team and collaborators at Walterloo University, Ontario, Canada are developing a device to automate the Lab-on-Bead process to achieve faster results. Wake Forest scientists work together with biotechnology researchers at Harvard University in Boston and Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, France, which provide research chemicals. Biotechnology company NanoMedica has shown great interest in commercializing this process. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center, a nonprofit private organization, funded a $ 75,000 project .

The Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials at Wake Forest, which currently conducts research programs on health, medicine, energy technology and nanomaterials, will support the research team in the process. Develop Lab-on-Bead