The Welsh School of Pharmacy recently hosted the world's first international workshop on molecular imprinting - a technique which leaves an impression of a molecule on a polymer surface.
Dr Keith Brain (senior lecturer, Welsh School of Pharmacy) explained to The Journal on July 10: "Imagine pressing a coin into a lump of plasticine to produce a detailed impression which mirrors the surface of the coin. That face of the coin will now fit snugly into the hole, although the other face will not as the design is different." You now have a piece of plasticine with a hole in it that can recognise each side of the coin."
He said that that the method could revolutionise drug discovery, medical diagnostics and environmental science. Cardiff university had taken a lead in the development and exploitation of pharmaceutical aspects of the science.
Dr Brain explained that molecularly imprinted polymers could be used to replace antibodies for diagnostic testing, as drug delivery devices, in drug screening programs, as sensors for biological monitoring, in the identification of new drugs, to detect low levels of potent toxins in foods and for environmental cleanup processes. They also had important applications in separation science and as highly specific catalysts.