I-Corps: Development and Commercial Feasibility of a Microfluidic Drug Discovery Kit

拟议的创新使用微流体技术快速生成药物的流体混合物，其比例具有细微的增量，以协助组合药物的开发。尽管自动移液系统和孔板已经成为初级药物筛选的主力，其中测试了数千种单独的化合物，但由于扫描大量药物和剂量组合的复杂性，很少（如果有的话）能够灵活地筛选组合药物。该技术涉及将药物溶液注入到独特设计的微流体装置中，该装置允许自主混合和稀释。这种方法允许以非常精细的增量混合药物，同时显著减少药物样品和试剂的消耗。开发用于组合药物发现的微流体液滴技术可以加速药物筛选和发现新药物或组合药物的过程。这将有助于减少药物开发的时间周期和成本，因为它有助于以非常小的增量实现药物的流体混合物。在制药行业之外，这项技术还可以在消费品和生物材料的组合混合中发挥作用。

The proposed innovation uses microfluidic technology to rapidly generate fluid mixtures of drugs with fine increments in their proportions to assist with combination drug development. Although automated pipetting systems and well plates have been the workhorse for primary drug screening where thousands of individual compounds are tested, few, if any, are flexible for screening combination drugs because of the complexity involved in scanning a large number of drug-and-dose combinations. This technology involves injecting plugs of drug solutions into a uniquely designed microfluidic device that allows autonomous mixing and dilution. This approach allows mixing drugs in very fine increments with significantly less consumption of drug samples and reagents. Development of a microfluidic drop technology for combination drug discovery may accelerate the process of drug screening and discovery of new or combination drugs. It would help to reduce the drug development time cycle and cost as it facilitates fluid mixtures of drugs in very small increments. Outside of the pharmaceutical industry, this technology could also play a role in combinational mixing of consumer products and biomaterials.