New Microelectronic Testing Devices To Reduce Drug Development Time

A program to develop a new generation of devices to test the efficacy of drugs by combining the drug with human cell components and then monitoring their interaction with a microelectronic system has received two million dollars in funding from the [U.S.] National Science Foundation (NSF).

The grant to investigators at the University of Maryland (College Park, USA) comes from funds in NSF's Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program, which was designed to revolutionize the way researchers develop and test pharmaceutical drugs.

The University of Maryland project will focus on miniaturizing and adapting their prototype device for testing drugs that may block cell-to-cell "quorum-sensing,” a key process in the development of infections in the body. The test device will be able to take electrical, mechanical, and optical measurements of biofilm (a coating created by bacteria as a product of quorum sensing). These results, collected in parallel, can then be correlated much faster than with current methods.

Biofilms have been found to be involved in a wide variety of microbial infections in the body, by one estimate 80% of all infections. Infectious processes in which biofilms have been implicated include common problems such as urinary tract infections, catheter infections, middle-ear infections, formation of dental plaque, gingivitis, coating contact lenses, and less common but more lethal processes such as endocarditis, infections in cystic fibrosis, and infections of permanent indwelling devices such as joint prostheses and heart valves. It has recently been shown that biofilms were present on the removed tissue of 80% of patients undergoing surgery for chronic sinusitis.

Development of drugs to interrupt quorum sensing has a high priority, since this class of drugs offers an important advantage over using antibiotics. A drug that interrupts quorum sensing will not stimulate the bacteria to evolve and become resistant, as antibiotics do.

"The current testing system, involving mice and other animals, does not reflect the human body,” explained project leader Professor William Bentley, professor of bioengineering at the University of Maryland. "This leads to inaccurate results that require additional rounds of testing, dragging out the process for years. In biology, it is time-consuming and expensive to generate the multiple forms of evidence needed to arrive at a conclusion. The team aims to miniaturize and automate this process in a lab-on-a-chip device that enlists the power of microelectronics.”


Related Links:
University of Maryland