DNA nanotechnology could accelerate the emergence of new drugs

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, published a new technology on April 5 that could hit “more than a million times” the speed of development of new vaccines and other pharmaceutical products. The tool achieves this feat by exponentially minimizing material and energy costs, reducing routinely researched molecules to the nanoscale through nanotechnology. DNA.

Published in the journal Nature Chemistry, the study enables more than 40,000 molecules to be synthesized and analyzed in “an area smaller than a pinhead.” For this, the new method uses soap-like bubbles as nano-containers aimed at mixing different “ingredients”.

To get an idea of ​​the material’s infinitesimal size, the project’s senior researcher, Nikos Hatzakis, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, likens the resource savings to “using one liter of water and one kilogram of material instead of the entire volume of water from all the oceans to the entire mass of Mount Everest.”

How was the new technology created?

The new technology, the result of work involving the integration of seemingly disparate disciplines such as synthetic biochemistry, nanotechnology, DNA synthesis, combinatorial chemistry, and even machine learning, is referred to as “DNA-based single-particle combinatorial lipid nanocap fusion.” mediated fusion” or with the long abbreviation SPARCLD. Results are available within seven minutes.

In an attempt to explain how high-density nanocontainer arrays work, Mette G. Malle, first author of the paper, adds, “What we have is very close to a live reading. It adds significant additional value. We hope this will be an important factor for the industry looking to implement the solution.” .

ARTICLE – Natural Chemistry – DOI: 10.1038/s41557-022-00912-5.