COLLEGE PARK, MD—University of Maryland researchers have made a major advance in development of “biochip microfactories” that may help make better drugs more rapidly and at reduced cost.

A cross-disciplinary research team at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering and the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) has shown for the first time that enzymes will perform their normal biochemical functions when electronically placed within such a man-made “biochip.”

The researchers created the biochip as a tiny bioprocessing “factory” containing multiple processing sites that are addressed fluidically, electrically, and optically. They have now successfully assembled an enzyme from bacteria within the biochip and shown that it can catalytically convert a small molecule to adenine and SRH products–products essential for cell-to-cell communication.

“We have now demonstrated perhaps the key advance needed to realize what we seek, a powerful laboratory tool for drug discovery,” said Gary Rubloff, professor in the Clark School’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Institute for Systems Research (ISR), director of the Maryland NanoCenter, and a member of the research team.

“Using biochip microfactories, we believe it will be possible to test potential drugs for their action in modifying biochemical processes that we know are important in living cells,” Rubloff said. “We hope to enable scientists and physicians to create better, more effective drugs more rapidly and at reduced cost.”

This development advances research funded by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation and a National Science Foundation Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation grant of $2 million.

On the Web: www.eng.umd.educ; www.umbi.org

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