The process of drug development could be significantly speeded up due to a new biosensor microchip that holds more than 100,000 magnetically sensitive nanosensors. The microchips, developed by researchers at Stanford University, United States, analyze how proteins bind to one another, which is a critical step in drug development. The nanosensors can simultaneously monitor thousands of times more proteins than existing technology. Richard Gaster, an MD/PhD candidate in bioengineering and medicine, and the paper’s first author, said, “In theory, in one test, you could look at a drug’s affinity for every protein in the human body.” The nanosensor array embodies two advances: the use of magnetic nanotags attached to the protein being studied, which greatly increases the sensitivity of the monitoring; and, an analytical model developed by the researchers that enables them to accurately predict the final outcome of the interaction based on only a few minutes of monitoring data. According to Gaster, “We can see how strongly the drug binds to breast cancer cells and then also how strongly it binds to any other cells in the human body such as your liver, kidneys and brain. So we can start to predict the adverse affects to this drug without ever putting it in a human patient.” Shan Wang, a professor of materials science and engineering and electrical engineering, who led the research effort, said, “The next step is to marry this technology to a specific drug that is under development. That will be the really killer application of this technology.” The team’s findings were published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The article can be viewed online at the link below.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/april/analyzing-protein-interactions-041911.html