Probing High-Throughput Drug Molecule Crystallisation Methods via Electron Diffraction

许多现代药物不是以片剂的形式服用，就是以胶囊的形式服用，在这种形式中，产生医疗效果的药物分子通常以小晶体的形式存在。基于药物分子在晶体内的排列方式，这些分子晶体的形式会对药物被患者吸收的速度产生重大影响，从而开始治疗他们的疾病。因此，在设计和开发新药时，了解分子在晶体中的排列方式非常重要。通过结合最先进的高通量机器人结晶技术Indicatrix Crystallography和Eldico Scientific的尖端电子衍射技术，该项目旨在开发新的，快速和经济高效的方法来发现和分析新的和现有药物分子的晶体形式。由此产生的平台技术将加速未来药物的开发，减少药物从实验室到医院的时间，从而最大限度地提高患者的利益。

Many modern medicines are taken either as a tablet or capsule, in which the drug molecules responsible for giving the medical benefit are often present as small crystals. The form which these molecular crystals take, based on how the drug molecules are arranged within the crystal, can have a significant impact on how quickly the drug is absorbed by the patient and thus gets to work treating their disease. So understanding how the molecules are arranged in the crystal is very important when designing and developing a new drug. By combining the state-of-the-art high through-put robotic crystallisation technology of Indicatrix Crystallography with cutting-edge electron diffraction technology of Eldico Scientific, this project aims to develop new, rapid and cost-efficient methods to discover and analysis the crystal forms of both new and existing drug molecules. The resulting platform technology will speed the development of the drugs of the future, decreasing the time taken to progress a drug from the laboratory to the hospital, thus maximising patient benefits.