3D Printing Drugs

Date: Monday 4^th April 2016

Time: 7pm

Venue: the Victorian Bar, Tron Theatre

Speaker: Lee Cronin

3D-printing is an emerging technology which promises to revolutionize many areas of manufacturing processes, transforming the relationships between the design, manufacture and operation of functional devices. To date, 3D-printing technologies have been applied to varied applications but we are wondering how chemistry can be changed and inspired using 3D printing approaches. In this lecture I will explain are approach to design the robot-chemist, inspired by 3D printer-based robots to make new chemicals, materials, and formulations. New ideas looking at drug discovery, designer organs, and new medical devices to detect and treat disease. Finally I will describe the idea of a chemical ‘iTunes’ whereby the ‘software’ for a medicine or disease test can be downloaded and made locally.

Lee Cronin (FRSE) is an award winning scientist and Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. His work brings together inorganic / synthetic chemists, chemical engineers, complex system modelling, evolutionary theory, robotics and artificial intelligence.