Make your own drugs with a 3D printer
BOTH CRONIN LABORATORY
THIS WEEK
Download a drug,
then press print
Anyone with a 3D printer and an internet
connection could become a chemist
Katharine Sanderson
COMPUTERS used to be just for
programmers, but these days
most people own at least one.
Now a similar revolution in
access to drugs and other
chemicals could be on the cards.
A team of researchers led
by chemist Lee Cronin at the
University of Glasgow, UK, has
made a selection of chemicals
using a digital blueprint and
a 3D printer costing $2000. The
printer prints the lab equipment
and then squirts the ingredients
8 | NewScientist | 21 April 2012
into the right places to make
the desired compounds.
Though the most immediate
application is to existing chemists
by providing new ways to discover
compounds, the technology
could one day turn anyone with
a 3D printer and an internet
connection into a chemist.
“It’s a way of democratising
chemistry, bringing chemistry
to the masses,” says Cronin.
People in far-flung regions
could make their own headache
pills or detergent, he suggests.
The technique might also allow
lengths. After the kit had set hard,
the printer’s nozzles squirted in
the reactants, or “chemical inks”
(see diagram, right).
In principle, the dimensions
of the equipment and chemical
ingredients required to produce
a particular product can all be
pre-designed and embedded in
the same software blueprint –
all a user needs to do is download
it and feed it to the printer. The
researchers envisage an online
store where you download an
app for a particular drug to your
3D printer and order a standard
set of chemical inks.
Potential health dangers
from allowing people to print
their own legal or illegal drugs
would be minimised, says Cronin,
as his team would only write
software for specific end products
that would be difficult to modify
into making other reactions.
“We would have pre-evaluated
the reactions in the lab so no one
would be allowed to hack.”
That’s a way off, though. So
–A 3D printer in every home?– far, Cronin has printed a simple
block containing two chambers
people to print and share recipes
connected to a central mixing
for niche substances that
compartment. That was enough
chemical or pharmaceutical
to carry out simple inorganic and
companies don’t make – because
organic reactions, and produce
there aren’t enough customers,
totally new compounds. This was
or they simply haven’t dreamed
done as a proof of principle – the
up those ideas. Of course, such
resulting compounds don’t have
freedoms will bring challenges
specific applications.
too, including ensuring that drugs
The researchers also carried out
are made safely, and dealing with
a well-known reaction requiring a
black markets that might offer
catalyst. They printed the catalyst
prescription-only or illegal drugs. into one of the chamber walls
With the potential to allow
anyone to build almost anything, “This fundamentally
changes the way chemistry
3D printing is no stranger to
is done. The equipment
controversy – but how do you
becomes an active agent”
make chemistry printable?
Cronin and his colleagues
turned to a version of the $2000
and produced the expected
3D printer used in the Fab@Home product, showing that this
project, a collaboration aiming to
method works (Nature Chemistry,
bring self-fabrication into the
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1313)
home. They discovered that they
Cronin emphasises that the
could use a common bathroom
team’s method fundamentally
sealant as the primary material
changes the way chemistry is
for printing reaction chambers
done. No longer are test tubes,
of all shapes and sizes, as well as
flasks and beakers passive players,
connection tubes of varying
they have become active agents.
In this section
n The birthplace of DNA, page 10
nA factory for atoms that barely exist, page 12
nTrying on a muscle suit, page 19
Drugs @ home
3D printers and a chemical “app store” could be combined to allow anyone to do chemistry
Download software blueprint
for drug or chemical of choice
and load to a 3D printer
That’s because a chemical reaction
depends not just on the starting
ingredients, but also their ratios
and the speed at which they are
mixed. This can be altered by
changing the size of the reaction
chambers and the distances the
inks have to travel to reach them.
“If your reaction doesn’t work,
rather than just changing the
reagents you change the shape of
the reactor,” he says.
This geometric control allows
the intricate details of a reaction
to be varied systematically in
new ways, which might result in
totally new compounds.
Cronin showed that this was
possible by repeating one of
the reactions. He used the same
amounts of starting materials,
but programmed the printer to
reduce the size of the central
mixing compartment. Only the
reactants that trickled in before
the compartment filled up got to
take part in the reaction. This was
enough to change the products
of the reaction.
The method is a welcome
departure from the tools currently
available to chemists, says Richard
Jones, a nanotechnologist at the
University of Sheffield, UK.
“Chemists have been doing their
business pretty much unchanged
since the alchemists.”
Printed labware might also
vastly speed up the discovery of
proteins. Flasks could be printed
Printer prints out reaction lasks and
tubes to precise geometry so as to control
the timings of each stage of the reaction
with small protein chains and
then amino acids washed through
to see what reacts. Unlike existing
methods for protein discovery,
this could be combined with
biological structures such as blood
vessels and even some organs,
versions of which can already be
printed, offering a way to quickly
screen the effects of new proteins.
In future, Cronin plans to
expand the menu of labware that
can be printed. To provide a heat
source, equivalent to a Bunsen
burner or hotplate, he suggests
printing metallic elements into
the flasks at certain spots, which
would heat up when placed in a
microwave oven. It should also
be possible to print a window into
the reaction vessel. That way, the
Printer squirts printed containers
with reactants, kicking of carefully
choreographed reactions
not clear how such people
camera on your smartphone
will get a 3D printer and the
and an app could examine the
mixture to tell you how a reaction chemical ingredients. However,
there are projects to distribute
is progressing.
3D printers in the developing
There are bound to be some
world to enable things like bicycle
limits, though. Cronin admits
parts to be made, and Cronin
he’s had to deal with a few fires in
points out that most drugs and
trying to print reactions that can
be explosive in the presence of
“People could make their
oxygen. He hopes that by
own headache pills, or
changing the flask material from
drugs that pharmaceutical
bathroom sealant to something
companies don’t make”
like Teflon, such air-sensitive
reactions will become easier.
detergents are made of carbon,
The team is currently working
hydrogen and oxygen, which are
on a kit to print ibuprofen. “In
also the components of readily
countries where there is little
available substances such as corn
access to even the most basic
syrup, glycerol and paraffin.
drugs and cleaning products,
There is also the possibility that
still most people have access to
non-chemists in the developed
mobile phones,” Cronin says. It’s
world will use the technology to
buy and share recipes directly
from chemists – perhaps for
substances that a company hasn’t
thought up or commercialised.
Chemist Fraser Stoddart at
Northwestern University in
Evanston, Illinois, calls the work
“a conceptual breakthrough of
refreshing proportions”. Another
chemist, Oren Scherman at the
University of Cambridge, is
reserving judgement until Cronin
proves he can perform otherwise
expensive and difficult reactions.
Cronin’s ambition is unabated:
“I imagine years from now,
people will make drugs in their
–First print your equipment– 3D printer at home.” n
21 April 2012 | NewScientist | 9
THIS WEEK
Download a drug,
then press print
Anyone with a 3D printer and an internet
connection could become a chemist
Katharine Sanderson
COMPUTERS used to be just for
programmers, but these days
most people own at least one.
Now a similar revolution in
access to drugs and other
chemicals could be on the cards.
A team of researchers led
by chemist Lee Cronin at the
University of Glasgow, UK, has
made a selection of chemicals
using a digital blueprint and
a 3D printer costing $2000. The
printer prints the lab equipment
and then squirts the ingredients
8 | NewScientist | 21 April 2012
into the right places to make
the desired compounds.
Though the most immediate
application is to existing chemists
by providing new ways to discover
compounds, the technology
could one day turn anyone with
a 3D printer and an internet
connection into a chemist.
“It’s a way of democratising
chemistry, bringing chemistry
to the masses,” says Cronin.
People in far-flung regions
could make their own headache
pills or detergent, he suggests.
The technique might also allow
lengths. After the kit had set hard,
the printer’s nozzles squirted in
the reactants, or “chemical inks”
(see diagram, right).
In principle, the dimensions
of the equipment and chemical
ingredients required to produce
a particular product can all be
pre-designed and embedded in
the same software blueprint –
all a user needs to do is download
it and feed it to the printer. The
researchers envisage an online
store where you download an
app for a particular drug to your
3D printer and order a standard
set of chemical inks.
Potential health dangers
from allowing people to print
their own legal or illegal drugs
would be minimised, says Cronin,
as his team would only write
software for specific end products
that would be difficult to modify
into making other reactions.
“We would have pre-evaluated
the reactions in the lab so no one
would be allowed to hack.”
That’s a way off, though. So
–A 3D printer in every home?– far, Cronin has printed a simple
block containing two chambers
people to print and share recipes
connected to a central mixing
for niche substances that
compartment. That was enough
chemical or pharmaceutical
to carry out simple inorganic and
companies don’t make – because
organic reactions, and produce
there aren’t enough customers,
totally new compounds. This was
or they simply haven’t dreamed
done as a proof of principle – the
up those ideas. Of course, such
resulting compounds don’t have
freedoms will bring challenges
specific applications.
too, including ensuring that drugs
The researchers also carried out
are made safely, and dealing with
a well-known reaction requiring a
black markets that might offer
catalyst. They printed the catalyst
prescription-only or illegal drugs. into one of the chamber walls
With the potential to allow
anyone to build almost anything, “This fundamentally
changes the way chemistry
3D printing is no stranger to
is done. The equipment
controversy – but how do you
becomes an active agent”
make chemistry printable?
Cronin and his colleagues
turned to a version of the $2000
and produced the expected
3D printer used in the Fab@Home product, showing that this
project, a collaboration aiming to
method works (Nature Chemistry,
bring self-fabrication into the
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1313)
home. They discovered that they
Cronin emphasises that the
could use a common bathroom
team’s method fundamentally
sealant as the primary material
changes the way chemistry is
for printing reaction chambers
done. No longer are test tubes,
of all shapes and sizes, as well as
flasks and beakers passive players,
connection tubes of varying
they have become active agents.
In this section
n The birthplace of DNA, page 10
nA factory for atoms that barely exist, page 12
nTrying on a muscle suit, page 19
Drugs @ home
3D printers and a chemical “app store” could be combined to allow anyone to do chemistry
Download software blueprint
for drug or chemical of choice
and load to a 3D printer
That’s because a chemical reaction
depends not just on the starting
ingredients, but also their ratios
and the speed at which they are
mixed. This can be altered by
changing the size of the reaction
chambers and the distances the
inks have to travel to reach them.
“If your reaction doesn’t work,
rather than just changing the
reagents you change the shape of
the reactor,” he says.
This geometric control allows
the intricate details of a reaction
to be varied systematically in
new ways, which might result in
totally new compounds.
Cronin showed that this was
possible by repeating one of
the reactions. He used the same
amounts of starting materials,
but programmed the printer to
reduce the size of the central
mixing compartment. Only the
reactants that trickled in before
the compartment filled up got to
take part in the reaction. This was
enough to change the products
of the reaction.
The method is a welcome
departure from the tools currently
available to chemists, says Richard
Jones, a nanotechnologist at the
University of Sheffield, UK.
“Chemists have been doing their
business pretty much unchanged
since the alchemists.”
Printed labware might also
vastly speed up the discovery of
proteins. Flasks could be printed
Printer prints out reaction lasks and
tubes to precise geometry so as to control
the timings of each stage of the reaction
with small protein chains and
then amino acids washed through
to see what reacts. Unlike existing
methods for protein discovery,
this could be combined with
biological structures such as blood
vessels and even some organs,
versions of which can already be
printed, offering a way to quickly
screen the effects of new proteins.
In future, Cronin plans to
expand the menu of labware that
can be printed. To provide a heat
source, equivalent to a Bunsen
burner or hotplate, he suggests
printing metallic elements into
the flasks at certain spots, which
would heat up when placed in a
microwave oven. It should also
be possible to print a window into
the reaction vessel. That way, the
Printer squirts printed containers
with reactants, kicking of carefully
choreographed reactions
not clear how such people
camera on your smartphone
will get a 3D printer and the
and an app could examine the
mixture to tell you how a reaction chemical ingredients. However,
there are projects to distribute
is progressing.
3D printers in the developing
There are bound to be some
world to enable things like bicycle
limits, though. Cronin admits
parts to be made, and Cronin
he’s had to deal with a few fires in
points out that most drugs and
trying to print reactions that can
be explosive in the presence of
“People could make their
oxygen. He hopes that by
own headache pills, or
changing the flask material from
drugs that pharmaceutical
bathroom sealant to something
companies don’t make”
like Teflon, such air-sensitive
reactions will become easier.
detergents are made of carbon,
The team is currently working
hydrogen and oxygen, which are
on a kit to print ibuprofen. “In
also the components of readily
countries where there is little
available substances such as corn
access to even the most basic
syrup, glycerol and paraffin.
drugs and cleaning products,
There is also the possibility that
still most people have access to
non-chemists in the developed
mobile phones,” Cronin says. It’s
world will use the technology to
buy and share recipes directly
from chemists – perhaps for
substances that a company hasn’t
thought up or commercialised.
Chemist Fraser Stoddart at
Northwestern University in
Evanston, Illinois, calls the work
“a conceptual breakthrough of
refreshing proportions”. Another
chemist, Oren Scherman at the
University of Cambridge, is
reserving judgement until Cronin
proves he can perform otherwise
expensive and difficult reactions.
Cronin’s ambition is unabated:
“I imagine years from now,
people will make drugs in their
–First print your equipment– 3D printer at home.” n
21 April 2012 | NewScientist | 9