Authors:
Shanthakumar.A
Chandran K C,
Sasikala P K
International Centre for Learning and Research in Molecular Imprinted Drugs
No. 6A, Ramakrishna Terrace, Colombo – 06, Sri Lanka,
e-mail : drshanthahom@gmail.com, iclrmid@gmail.com
Abstract: In the seminal article introducing the idea of ‘Molecular Imprinted Polymers’ published in Nature(1) in 1993, the group of Klaus Mosbach had hypothesized molecular imprinted materials could one day provide a “useful, general alternative to antibodies”, and called them “antibody mimics”. Even though molecular imprinting technology has made great strides during the past 23 years since the publication of that article, and MIPs succeeded in being widely used as an alternative to antibodies in competitive binding assays, their prophecy did not materialize in its full meaning as a ‘general alternative to antibodies’. Being polymer-based preparations, MIPs could not be so far used as an alternative to antibodies inside the living bodies due to safety concerns originating from issues related with absorption, metabolism, elimination, stability, toxicity etc.
In this present article, authors introduce a novel technique of drug designing, wherein Molecular Imprinted Artificial Ligand Binds (MIALBs) could be synthesized by a process of molecular imprinting in water-ethyl alcohol supra-molecular matrices using endogenous biological receptor ligands, pathogenic molecules or protein inhibitor drug molecules as templates. This technique is expected to pave way to the development of a whole new range of safe and effective prophylactic as well as therapeutic designer drugs against almost every disease where the underlying molecular mechanism of pathology is known. This new technique will obviously lead also to the materialization of the twenty years old prophecy of our forerunners regarding molecular imprinted materials as a “useful, general alternative to antibodies”.
This article consists of only the introductory conceptual part of the proposed Molecular Imprinted Artificial Ligand Binds (MIALBs) technique of Drug Designing by molecular imprinting in water-ethyl alcohol matrix. Experimental and Technical part of this work will be published very shortly as a separate research paper once the ongoing in-vitro and in-vivo studies are concluded and analyzed. Once completed, this work is expected to open up great new avenues of researches in the field of Molecular Imprinting that may lead to a total revamping of whole pharmaceutical industry.
Keywords: drug design, molecular imprinting, antibody mimics, pharmaceutics, therapeutics, prophylactics