This article was first published in the August 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content bysubscribing online
Imagine if making drugs was as easy as snapping molecules together like LEGO blocks. University of Illinois chemistry professor Martin Burke has found a way: a molecular 3D printer. "Natural compounds are exciting starting points," Burke says. "But their complexity makes them impossible to synthesise." His printer can generate more than 2,100 structure types from just 12 commercially available fragments. The new method also allows compounds to be tweaked before printing, creating bespoke synthetic super-compounds. Take amphotericin B, for instance -- it's the most effective treatment for life-threatening fungal infections, but it's also highly toxic to humans. Such infections have a 50 per cent mortality rate because of limits on the amount that can be prescribed. Burke's machine has already printed less toxic versions, which Revolution Medicines, a Californian biotech company that's licensed the technology, is now developing. Burke also believes they'll be able to exploit a special property of amphotericin B: microbes have been unable to evolve resistance to it. "We've linked fragments of the molecule to this function," he says.
These can be plugged into other molecules to grant them anti-resistance powers. But Burke's ambitions go beyond medicine: "Small molecules are used in all sorts of technologies, from oven mitts to spacesuits," he says. "My vision is a website where you can design a molecule to be printed, and it's sent out to you. We want to bring molecule manufacturing to everyone."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
