How Inkjet Printers Are Helping Scientists Discover New Drugs
D300 HP Hewlett Packard has spent the past 25 years in the printing business, enabling legions of businesses to print documents and photos. But that hasn't been the company's only endeavor. Over the past 10 years, HP's research and development teams have been working on ways to transfer standard inkjet technology for use in pharmaceutical labs. The result: HP's Direct Digital Dispenser (HP D300), a printer-like system that helps scientists develop new drugs. Scientists at pharmaceutical companies such as Astra Zeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and SIGA Technologies are using the D300 to develop new drugs. SIGA has already put the D300 into practice to develop an experimental compound dubbed ST-246, which would be given to people who are diagnosed with smallpox too late for a vaccine to help. How did HP take technology from the copy room to the biochemical lab? *** It started about five years ago, when HP realized that the...