Additively manufactured monolithic reactors allow on-demand synthesis of drug molecules The way we manufacture many of the products used in everyday life, such as the ingredients in shampoo, the plastic components of smartphones, the vitamins and pharmaceuticals we take, and the packaging that all of them come in, has not changed in a significant way over the last hundred years. Arguably, these methods of manufacturing are even older and were already applied in the first large-scale chemical processes in the 19th century, in which new products such as vulcanized rubber, synthetic dyes, or industrial fertilizers were first produced on scales unknown to society at the time. The development of these industrial processes was driven by the benefits of economy of scale, with the aim of centralizing, optimizing, maximizing, and integrating production. In recent years, efforts were made by a series of research groups to reverse this trend and decentralize, miniaturize, and even digitize chemical manufacturing. On page 314 of this issue, Kitson et al. (1) report the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) on demand in a three-dimensional (3D)-printed, miniaturized reactor cascade. A complete multistep synthesis of the muscle relaxant baclofen was developed and digitized for remote bench-scale manufacture.

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制造分子的艺术

增材制造的整体反应器允许按需合成药物分子 我们制造日常生活中使用的许多产品的方式，例如洗发水成分、智能手机的塑料组件、我们服用的维生素和药物，以及所有这些的包装在过去的一百年里，它们中的一部分没有发生重大变化。可以说，这些制造方法甚至更古老，并且已经在 19 世纪的第一批大规模化学过程中得到应用，其中硫化橡胶、合成染料或工业肥料等新产品首次以社会未知的规模生产。时间。这些工业过程的发展是由规模经济的利益驱动的，目的是集中、优化、最大化和整合生产。近年来，一系列研究小组努力扭转这一趋势，将化学制造分散化、小型化甚至数字化。在本期第 314 页，Kitson 等人。(1) 报告在三维 (3D) 打印的小型化反应器级联中按需合成活性药物成分 (API)。肌肉松弛剂巴氯芬的完整多步合成被开发和数字化，用于远程实验室规模制造。