Drug Lab on Wheels

Saw some interesting proposals about altering the way drug research could be done recently, so this is particularly interesting.

A Drug Laboratory on Wheels   By Joe Dysart 

The portable drug lab could decentralize the way drugs are made.
A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a chip that allows the modulation of gene circuits to produce specific drugs, one dose at a time.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have devised a miniature drug laboratory—about the size of a college dorm-room refrigerator—that could decentralize the way drugs are made.

The lab-to-go is driven by a microfluidic chip, which modulates the fermentation of genetically altered yeast to produce a wide variety of medications.

“Our goal is to decentralize drug manufacturing and allow portable, on-demand drug production anywhere,” says Timothy K. Lu, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of synthetic biology at MIT and a lead researcher on the project.

“We believe that decentralized drug manufacturing has the potential to upend the current status quo for the drug market, and by enabling a platform akin to ‘3D printing for drugs,’ should help to drive pressure on drug costs,”  Lu says.   ... "     ... '