Professor Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington, Exhibition Road, SW7 2AZ, London, UK.
Expert Opin Drug Discov. 2008 Nov;3(11):1281-92. doi: 10.1517/17460441.3.11.1281.
Microfluidic methods have found applications in various disciplines. It has been predicted that the microfluidic technology would be useful in performing routine steps in drug discovery ranging from target identification to lead optimisation in which the number of compounds evaluated in this regard determines the success of combinatorial screening. The sheer size of the parameter space that can be explored often poses an enormous challenge.
We set out to find how close we are towards the use of integrated matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) microfluidic systems for drug discovery.
In this article we review the latest applications of microfluidic technology in the area of MALDI-MS and drug discovery.
RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: Our literature survey revealed microfluidic technologies-based approaches for various stages of drug discovery; however, they are in still in developmental stages. Furthermore, we speculate on how these technologies could be used in the future.
微流控方法在各个领域都有应用。有人预测，微流控技术将有助于完成从靶点确证到先导化合物优化的药物发现的常规步骤，因为在这方面评估的化合物数量决定了组合筛选的成败。可以探索的参数空间之大往往构成了巨大的挑战。
我们旨在探讨集成基质辅助激光解吸/电离质谱（MALDI-MS）微流控系统在药物发现中的应用程度。
本文综述了微流控技术在 MALDI-MS 和药物发现领域的最新应用。
结果/结论：我们的文献调查显示，基于微流控技术的方法可用于药物发现的各个阶段；然而，它们仍处于发展阶段。此外，我们还推测了这些技术未来的应用方式。
