Wang Yuetong, Chen Zhuoyue, Bian Feika, Shang Luoran, Zhu Kaixuan, Zhao Yuanjin
State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University , Nanjing, China.
Zhongshan-Xuhui Hospital, Fudan University, and the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Medical Epigenetics, Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University , Shanghai, China.
Expert Opin Drug Discov. 2020 Aug;15(8):969-979. doi: 10.1080/17460441.2020.1758663. Epub 2020 Apr 30.
Drug discovery through a large number of candidates with nearly unlimited possibilities is laborious, time-consuming, and incurs massive costs. It thus calls for fast and robust methods that allow for handling small amounts of reagents, automation, and high-throughput analysis. In this regard, droplet-based microfluidic platforms provide several unique advantages. Highly monodispersed droplets can be generated in a high frequency and serve as microcontainers with just a few femtoliter to nanoliter volume. Furthermore, each of them can be manipulated to initiate specific reactions in parallel. Consequently, droplet microfluidics is emerging as a useful tool for drug discovery and development.
The authors provide a brief overview of the latest developments of droplet-based microfluidic techniques for drug discovery and emphasize their applications at different stages, covering target selection, drug candidate identification, and preclinical research.
Droplet-based microfluidics holds great potential in drug discovery due to its capability of reaction miniaturization and high-throughput analysis. However, its commercial applications are still at an early stage as the experiments are mostly implemented utilizing custom-built instruments in laboratory environments. Thus, joint efforts from scientists and engineers with multidisciplinary backgrounds are required to optimize the standardization and stability of droplet-based microfluidic platforms.
通过大量具有几乎无限可能性的候选物进行药物发现既费力、耗时又成本高昂。因此，需要快速且强大的方法，以实现少量试剂的处理、自动化和高通量分析。在这方面，基于液滴的微流控平台具有若干独特优势。可以高频产生高度单分散的液滴，这些液滴可作为体积仅为几飞升至纳升的微容器。此外，每个液滴都可以被操控以并行引发特定反应。因此，液滴微流控技术正成为药物发现与开发的一种有用工具。
作者简要概述了用于药物发现的基于液滴的微流控技术的最新进展，并强调了它们在不同阶段的应用，包括靶点选择、候选药物鉴定和临床前研究。
基于液滴的微流控技术因其反应微型化和高通量分析的能力，在药物发现方面具有巨大潜力。然而，其商业应用仍处于早期阶段，因为实验大多在实验室环境中使用定制仪器进行。因此，需要具有多学科背景的科学家和工程师共同努力，以优化基于液滴的微流控平台的标准化和稳定性。
