Drug discovery with ThalesNano H-Cube expedited

A collaboration between groups led by John Spencer at Greenwich University, USA, and Simon Mackay and Alan Harvey, professors 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 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 [ThalesNano]  H-Cube flow method provided compounds in approximately five 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, Germany (organized by Select Biosciences).