Exceptional Innovation in Drug Development

Imaging processes play an important role in medical and biological research. However, with conventional imaging processes like traditional microscope tests can only give high precision morphological data mostly from fixed, in other words not living tissues.

We want to know more and more about molecular interactions within the living cell for the purposes of both exploratory and applied biomedical research. Thus, the demand for the development of a nonconventional imaging software, with super-high resolution that can reveal the movements of molecules inside the living cell, is rapidly growing.

Thanks to all this, the members of the Molecular Neuroendocrinology Research Group led by Dr. István Ábrahám at the Szentágothai János Research Center, Institute of Physiology, Medical School of the University of Pécs, based on the data from basic research were able to develop a superfast imaging and analysis system with top resolution (3D single molecule detection microscope (3D-SMDM)), with which

they can perceive the movements and interactions of molecules on a singular molecular level in three dimensions within the living cell, cheaply and efficiently.

The innovation’s patenting processes are in progress. During the early stages of development, the staff of a Hungarian company, Femtonics Ltd. have contributed as well.

During the innovation process, researchers based the new technological solutions on their own scientific needs: during their research, certain currently unanswered questions and needs surfaced. While searching for answers to these questions, they realized, how their new technology could prove useful in many fields of research, like medical drug development among many others. Thus, in order to utilize the data provided by internationally acclaimed basic research in the field of molecular imaging, they entered into a collaborative relationship with one of Hungary’s most important companies in the pharmaceutical industry, Richter Gedeon Nyrt.

In this project, supported by the Richer Gedeon Nyrt., the testing of original medicine molecules and the optimalization of the effectiveness of the active agents happen with the help of the cutting-edge technology 3D-SMDM unit developed by the researchers. This molecular imaging technology makes the visual recording of the effects of medicine molecules possible in the living cell. These recordings can be analyzed much like a movie, in which we able to examine what happens on a molecular level, when the drug begins to take effect in the living human cell. Currently this is the sole research in the world, where the effects of a drug are analyzed in space and time with such precise resolution in a living cell. The researchers hope that this revolutionary new approach can open up new paths in medical drug development and research, which

can contribute to finding a cure for diseases that are currently untreatable.