University of Greenwich speeds drug research with ThalesNano H-Cube

A collaboration between groups led by Dr. John Spencer at Greenwich University and Professor Simon Mackay and Professor Alan Harvey at Strathclyde University has led to the discovery of a novel class of benzodiazepines with submicromolar activity against trypanosoma brucei spp., a parasitic species that causes African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness in humans.

Dr. John Spencer, Reader in Medicinal Chemistry, said, "Rajendra Rathnam, one of my PhD students at Greenwich, has successfully synthesized a number of benzodiazepine containing amines by a variety of reduction methods from their nitro precursors including microwave reductions with Molybdenum hexacarbonyl/DBU or Tin (II) Chloride, but the H-Cube flow method provided compounds in approximately 5 minutes in high yields and without the need for work-up or column chromatography. Such an approach is very promising for the generation of libraries of bioactive molecules and can expedite drug discovery significantly."

The work was recently presented at the prestigious MedChem Europe 2009 Conference in Berlin (organized by Select Biosciences).

"We are proud that our technology can play an important role in advancing science," said Richard Jones, Director of Product Management at ThalesNano. "From its introduction, H-Cube has opened up vast new areas of chemistry due to its advantages of speed, selectivity and yield."

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