MICINN-PDC 2023 PROYECTOS PRUEBAS DE CONCEPTO (PRTR)

ABSTRACT:

The pharmaceutical industry directly affects the well-being of millions of people around the world. Drug development is a delicate and lengthy iterative process with approximately 40% of drug candidates failing and being disregarded due to unfavorable safety and toxicity profiles. Current Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Elimination, Toxicity (ADMET) studies are an integral part of drug development but are time- and resource- limiting the number of candidates that can be intensively screened at each stage. A key metric of these ADMET studies in drug discovery and development is measuring the activity of Cytochrome P450 (CYP450), a cytochrome, a key player in metabolizing drugs and toxins. The key to accelerating these ADMET studies is developing sensitive, fast, and high-throughput screening (HTS) studies, to be conducted in a time- and resource- efficient way. QEETOF directly addresses this concern by developing a novel quantum photonic nanotechnology based CYP450 activity measurement assay that can be easily multiplexed and provides rapid direct readouts compared to laborious and ineffective state-of-the-art solutions. Our device will allow efficient measurement of CYP450, informing both concentration and activity, in a high throughput format and thus fulfilling a clear unmet need in the market. The microfluidic Cluster in the University of the Basque Country (ES) has developed this photonic quantum nanotechnology-based chemical sensor and tested this for preliminary analytes such as Cytochrome c and metal ions (TRL4). For next steps, we envisage to conduct further technical development, validation and demonstration of our device in relevant environment (TRL5 & 6), to be potentially commercialized following the project.