Drug metabolism animation

Computer animation: electrochemical conversions in drug metabolism studies

This very nice computer animation on YouTube is made by University of Twente to demonstrate an electrochemical cell-on-chip for drug screening. It shows the traditional method and the EC/MS method for drug metabolism studies. The same principle is applied in the ROXY systems.

Part 1 (0 - 1:00 min), the first part shows a traditional metabolism study. Drugs are swallowed and metabolised in the body (liver). Urine samples are collected and analyzed by mass spectrometry (MS).

Part 2 (1 - 1:47 min), the second part illustrates the in vitro method using EC/MS. Drugs are dissolved and pumped trough an electrochemical cell coupled to MS. The same metabolites are found in a much faster and cleaner way, with less biological interferences.

Download (right click, save as..) in case you can't access the YouTube movie.

See also: A microfluidic chip for electrochemical conversions in drug metabolism studies, M. Odijk, A. Baumann, W. Lohmann, F. T. G. van den Brink, W. Olthuis, U. Karst and A. van den Berg, Lab Chip, 2009, 9, 1687-1693.