


In a press release, the US national science foundation, which funded the research, said that the approach "could drastically reduce the time required to create and test medications".

Traditional drug development relies on trial-and-error and vast effectiveness studies, whereas the self-assembly technique lets scientists target specific cell receptors or biological pathways.

For example, in this drug, developers combined molecules that were good at finding cancer cells with ones that were good at latching on to them, and molecules that were good at killing them. Combined, the molecules are effective at all three tasks.

"Currently, most drugs are developed using a screening technique where you try a lot of candidate compounds against targets to 'see what sticks'," says Steven Armentrout, a co-developer of the technology.



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