Affordable Low-volume Printed High-throughput Assays (Project ALPHA)

经济实惠的小批量打印高通量检测（Project ALPHA）

• 批准号: BB/T011750/1
• 负责人: Ronan Daly
• 金额: $ 19.28万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FT011750%2F1
• 关键词: Affordable; Low; volume; Printed; throughput

There are major global health challenges where we need to discover new drugs urgently, such as when tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) or when driving new approaches to cancer treatment. Our ability to identify the right treatments is directly linked to how many potential drugs can be tested against the ever growing range of targets. National investments in responding to these challenges has been significant with large, centralised investments in facilities that can use high-throughput screening techniques to test large numbers of potential drugs. Through this project we want to now scale-out the testing capability to reach unprecedented numbers of researchers, giving as many labs as possible the research tools to test ideas rapidly by dramatically decreasing expensive reagent use and the size of equipment footprint, dropping the currently prohibitive costs for most labs.These tests are carried out in assays so miniaturising the required sample or reagent volumes is critical to maximising the number of possible tests. Miniaturisation has been a focus since the 1990s, enabling more parallel analyses. While rare in an academic environment, there are 3456 reaction zones, or wells, on the most advanced industrial plates, each carrying out one assay, testing a drug with a target. This proposal is pushing to drive a dramatic shift to over 17 million tests in the same plate size, with each well providing a 3D, biologically relevant, micro-environment for cell-drug interactions, mimicking their natural environment.The unique core printed technology is developed in Department of Engineering, working with Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology and Cancer Research UK (Cambridge Centre) for this proof-of-concept. The cutting edge discovery by the PI and co-I Researcher is that inkjet printed drops can be captured at fluid surfaces, with each trapped as a microscale well. The PI has previously reported controlling and capturing similar arrays of liquid droplets. 50,000 times less material is needed per well and the surprising ease of liquid handling requires relatively simple robotics. There is digital control over the creation of the 'plate' for every array of assays, turning each to a user-defined size. This minimises waste dramatically while also ensuring the lowest possible environmental impact through minimal reagent and plastics material usage. The team aims to ensure affordability and rapid research uptake by coupling reagent minimisation with simple off-the-shelf automation.

全球面临重大健康挑战，我们迫切需要发现新药，例如在应对抗菌素耐药性 (AMR) 或推动新的癌症治疗方法时。我们确定正确治疗方法的能力与可以针对不断增长的靶标范围测试多少种潜在药物直接相关。国家为应对这些挑战进行了大量投资，对能够使用高通量筛选技术来测试大量潜在药物的设施进行了大量集中投资。通过这个项目，我们现在希望扩大测试能力，以达到前所未有的数量的研究人员，通过大幅减少昂贵的试剂使用和设备占地面积，为尽可能多的实验室提供快速测试想法的研究工具，降低目前大多数实验室难以承受的成本。这些测试是在化验中进行的，因此使所需的样品或试剂体积小型化对于最大化可能的测试数量至关重要。自 20 世纪 90 年代以来，小型化一直是人们关注的焦点，这使得更多的并行分析成为可能。虽然在学术环境中很少见，但最先进的工业板上有 3456 个反应区或反应孔，每个反应区都进行一次测定，测试具有目标的药物。该提案正在推动巨大的转变，以相同的板尺寸进行超过 1700 万次测试，每个孔都为细胞-药物相互作用提供 3D 生物相关微环境，模仿其自然环境。独特的核心印刷技术是由工程系与化学工程和生物技术系以及英国癌症研究部（剑桥中心）合作开发的，以进行这一概念验证。 PI 和 co-I 研究人员的前沿发现是，喷墨打印的液滴可以在流体表面捕获，每个液滴都被捕获为微型孔。 PI 此前曾报道过控制和捕获类似的液滴阵列。每口井所需的材料减少了 50,000 倍，并且液体处理的惊人简便性需要相对简单的机器人技术。对每个测定阵列的“板”的创建进行数字控制，将每个阵列转变为用户定义的尺寸。这极大地减少了浪费，同时通过最少的试剂和塑料材料的使用确保尽可能降低对环境的影响。该团队的目标是通过将试剂最小化与简单的现成自动化结合起来，确保可负担性和快速研究吸收。

项目成果

Direct-writing microporous polymer architectures - print, capture and release.

• DOI: 10.1039/d0mh01460e
• 发表时间: 2021-01
• 期刊: Materials horizons
• 影响因子: 13.3
• 作者: Qingxin Zhang;Niamh Willis‐Fox;Clare Conboy;Rónán Daly

Capturing the value in printed pharmaceuticals - A study of inkjet droplets released from a polymer matrix.

捕捉印刷药品的价值 - 对聚合物基质释放的喷墨液滴的研究。

• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2021.120436
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: International journal of pharmaceutics
• 影响因子: 5.8
• 作者: Zhang Q