	Welcome to the Webpage of Devin Cortes I am a young, Freshmen Engineer who loves lifting, music, and Budny	Individual Web Page

Welcome to the Webpage of Devin Cortes

I am a young, Freshmen Engineer who loves lifting, music, and Budny

Individual Web Page

Global Well-Being and the Advancement of Drugs and their Delivery Systems

Devin Cortes (drc76@pitt.edu)

An Engineering Problem to Span the Decade

Over the past centuries, the quality of life and the average lifespan of the world’s population has skyrocketed and continues to do so as the current century progresses. Although this seems like an ideal progression of medicine, science, and technology; it comes with its drawbacks and challenges. The population of 65+ year olds in America alone has doubled since 2011 and continues to grow exponentially [1]. The growing amount of people reaching old age means an increasing amount of people that are experiencing the issues that come along with old age. The risks of genetic diseases, cancers, and environmentally controlled genetic infections increases as one’s immune system, organs, tissues, and cells become less functional and lose the ability to maintain the homeostatic properties of the complex human body. One battle that researchers and engineers alike have decided to take on is the improvement of drug delivery efficiency and the overall effect of drugs on their targeted organs or tissues. The current process to create new drugs or new drug delivery systems involves years of costly licensing procedures on top of the years of expensive research and results in new drugs not appearing to consumer use until after over 15 years of research and millions of dollars have been poured into the product [1]. Other issues simply involve issue with the drugs themselves and various research is currently in progress to address these issues. Such research includes creating drug delivery systems and techniques that more efficiently affect only the targeted area within the body. Progress in this field will not only increase the effectiveness of various pharmaceuticals but also decrease the number of unwarranted side-effects that plaque many of the treatment techniques of today.

Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction

The first step into producing more efficient drug systems is to better understand the origin of various diseases or infections so that a more specific target region can be created for each unique disease that is being treated. The isolation of these pathogens is also vital to the improvement of drug technology as every pathogen acts in unique ways and requires different biological processes to be reversed or treated. Thus, multiple technologies of both pathogen isolation and drug delivery amplification must work in cohesion and at rates that parallel the progress of one another. An up and coming technique known as Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) aides in just that. qPCR is a new form of the famous process of Polymerase Chain Reaction that was largely responsible for mapping out The Human Genome [2]. PCR is biomolecular technique that allows for the rapid replication of DNA and RNA sequins that can then be researched and manipulated easily in a lab with little to no risk of ruining the nucleic acid sample. qPCR, however is a new style of PCR that allows for not only the rapid replication, but also identification of the desired DNA or RNA. qPCR involves combining general PCR principles with the detection of fluorescence detection [2]. The process takes part in a thermal cycler, which is a laboratory apparatus designed specifically for optimizing the PCR process. qPCR, however, used fluoresce detection by blasting the samples with light and that causes the DNA or RNA samples to emitted by what is known as a fluorophore. A fluorophore is no more than a chemical compound that becomes ‘excited’ when it absorbs energy from the beams of light emitted from the thermal cycle. Thus, the different samples will release different levels of fluoresce and the analysis of these fluoresce levels allow of the detection of the desired DNA strand or sequence that is being researched.

qPCR is a technique that takes the place of some that have been around for decades. The significant one is known as gel electrophoresis. This is the main process by which DNA strands have been identified in the past. It takes advantage of the size of DNA and the negatively charged nature of DNA molecules. The process by which DNA is separated via gel electrophoresis involves inserting a solution of the replicated DNA molecules in one side of a gel mold, then adding a negative electrode on the side of the DNA, with a positive electrode on the opposite side. e electricity is running through the mold, the negative electrode will repulse the DNA away from one end as the positive electrode will attract the DNA towards it. The DNA then moves through the mold, with smaller strands going the farthest distance and larger strands lagging behind. Scientists and engineers are then able to identify the desired strands of DNA by matching the distances that the individual molecules moved to other molecules of DNA. qPCR completely replaces the need to go through this post PCR identification process. Thus, allowing for a more efficient way to obtain DNA molecules that can then be analyzed for pathogen and disease origin, which, in turn leads to a more efficient way to attack these infection origins with new drug delivery techniques.

Modern qPCR, Thermal Cyclers and New Drug Systems

qPCR is still a relatively new process as the first set of guidelines for lab techniques were published just in 2009 by Stephen A. Bustin, professor of molecular science, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London [3]. Since then, many people have begun to push the boundaries of qPCR in terms of productivity and efficiency. However, as scientists attempt to push the boundaries of qCPR the result become more and more strewed and less reliable. Thus, thermal cyclers that have been engineered to be more productive, efficient, and accurate have begun to hit the market. The main difference in the newest thermal cycler technology has improved involves finding better materials for the many components that make up the apparatus. For example, a company by the name of LABRepCo sells a modern real-time PCR thermal cycler known as the qTower3 by an analytical instrument company known as Analytik Jena [4].

This instrument has many unique features compared to other thermal cyclers of its style. It contains four different LED lights of red, green, blue, and white wavelengths so that maximal fluoresce levels may be reached in each separate sample [4]. It also contains a thermal block made out of silver alloy rather than aluminum. The alloy allows for much more efficient and complete energy transfer from the thermal block to the sample, allowing for temperature readings accurate to 0.1 Cº [4]. Such advances that may seem minor and propel qPCR to the next level and provide a larger and more accurate platform for the development of new drugs and drug delivery systems

Drug and Patient Needs Influence Drug Advancements

A major concern with testing new drugs is their toxicity levels and side effects on cells that are not the desired target of the drug. Examples include in recent years when qPCR was used to test liver toxicity of diabetes drugs that were already on the market. The test revealed that these drugs were extremely toxic to the liver and immediately removed from the market by the FDA. Without the advancements in PCR guidelines and thermal cycler technologies the drug, troglitazone, could still be sold and prescribed to diabetes patients and causing debatably more harm than good.

A huge breakthrough in drug deliver is the SmartDose Drug Delivery Platform by Medimop Medical Projects [5]. This platform involves a compact machine that adheres to the human body and is programmed to release the medicine into the body based on various settings and criteria. The goal of SmartDose was to help the victims of chronic conditions [6]. Many of the drugs that are used to treat chronic diseases have unique characteristics that make them difficult for patients to administer themselves. Some of these drugs are very concentrated and improper administration can cause harmful side-effects, or the prescribed medicine may be too viscous or require a constant injection over long periods of time to various parts of the body [6]. The SmartDose is programmed by medication to inject the medicine to exactly the criteria based on the unique dug and individual needs of the patient. It also is self-adhering to different parts of the body, directly to the bloodstream, thus allowing for fast-acting to the target area of the chronic condition which can now be located for various diseases through the genetic accomplishments of the qPCR guidelines and technological advancements.

THE FATHER OF QPCR

Stephen A. Bustin led a coalition of scientists to set the first guidelines for real-time PCR (qPCR) and set the standards for carrying out qPCR in the lab [7]. Dr. Bustin earned his Bachelor’s Degree and Doctorate in Molecular Genetics from Trinity College in Dublin and has played a very important role in PCR throughout his career. He has published dozens of articles and research papers that revolved around PCR techniques and applications. One of his most prevalent publications, however, revolved not only around setting guidelines for real-time PCR but also the different applications and what he believed were the two groups in which it could be useful: diagnostic and research.

Dr. Bustin states that, “Research applications usually analyze a wide range of targets with a fairly low throughput and many different sample types.” [7] In other words, the goals of research require results that are broader and can be analyzed and applied to various topics and compared to other studies in order to provide the most beneficial results to the industry. Diagnostic applications, however, differ in the fact that a diagnosis results in a patient listening to the results and undergoing the protocol that goes along with that diagnosis. Thus, results require more specific samples, accuracy and precision to pass the more intense regulations surrounding diagnostic lab techniques.

QPCR AND ME

The advancement of medicine is a never-ending battle. As the world’s population continues to grow in size and in age new challenges will continue to appear and new technology will be required to make new discoveries about the complex processes of the human body and how disease and infection falls into these processes. I have always been interested in the engineering and scientific techniques that are used to investigate the everyday medicinal problems that society currently faces.

I have some experience with both PCR and gel electrophoresis and believe the applications surrounding them are endless. The advancement of qPCR through technology and technique are, in my opinion, of importance equivalent to that of the mapping of the Human Genome. If the medical industry is in the midst of a large push to improve the understanding and treatment of infectious disease that may quite possibly rule the bioengineering field by the time of my graduation. Thus, it is important for me to educate myself on the current progress of the field and how it may affect my career decisions in the future. The study of genetics and infectious disease are a branch of metabolism and various tissue engineering principles maybe applied in order to proceed in the proper direction towards a healthier globe. I believe through my own studies and educational pursuits I can make a difference in the future of how the world looks at infectious disease.