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Novel method developed by HKBU scholars could help produce purer, safer drugs

29 Apr 2019

The team led by Dr Jeffery Huang (2nd from left) and Dr Ken Leung (3rd from left) have invented a new method which could help produce purer and safer drugs
The team led by Dr Jeffery Huang (2nd from left) and Dr Ken Leung (3rd from left) have invented a new method which could help produce purer and safer drugs
 
Optical activity of molecules is amplified in more than 10 folds, by structure-specific adsorption of the molecules on chiral nanoparticles.
Optical activity of molecules is amplified in more than 10 folds, by structure-specific adsorption of the molecules on chiral nanoparticles.

Physics and Chemistry scholars from HKBU have invented a new method which could speed up the drug discovery process and lead to the production of higher quality medicinal drugs which are purer and have no side effects. The technique, which is a world-first breakthrough, uses a specific nanomaterial layer to detect the target molecules in pharmaceuticals and pesticides in just five minutes.


The new HKBU invention can be applied to the drug discovery process, as well as the production and quality control stages of pharmaceutical manufacturing. It can also be used in environmental monitoring. The paper, which is entitled “Chiral Nanoparticle-Induced Enantioselective Amplification of Molecular Optical Activity”, was published in the renowned international journal Advanced Functional Materials .


The team was jointly led by Associate Professor Dr Jeffery Huang Zhifeng and Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Lin Yang from the Department of Physics, and Associate Professor Dr Ken Leung Cham-fai and Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Kwan Chak-shing from the Department of Chemistry at HKBU.


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