The new devices have been named Symphony X and Overture. The main task of the machines is to create nanoscale biological structures that mimic the way that natural antibiotics work.
With this the machines are creating peptoids, which are synthetic peptides. Recently peptoids have been developed as potential drugs for a range of different biomedical applications; this includes anti-microbial agents of the type that could be used as antibiotics. In the human body, the body manufacturers peptides to help with infections. These are not always effective and to fight certain pathogens antibiotics are administered.
The hunt for new antibiotics is an issue of global importance. The number of available compounds has not grown significantly for several decades and many bacterial pathogens are becoming resistant to those compounds that are available. This presents a risk to people with exposed wounds.
The research into peptoids is designed to complement the hunt for new antibiotics and it is for this reason that research has gone into robotics. Given the thousands of different chemical combinations, the use of robots helps scientists to screen various possible substances.
As a sign of success, researchers at Roskilde University (Denmark) have used Symphony X and Overture to make various peptoids designed to target specific bacteria. The main mechanism is to target the bacterial cell wall and puncture it, allowing the contents to spill out and there by killing the bacterium. This research has been published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents Chemotherapy, in a paper called “Structure-activity relationship study of novel peptoids that mimic the structure of antimicrobial peptides.”
The new robots are currently located at the Science User Facility at Berkeley Laboratory; here various streams of research are on-going.
