The 'chemputer' that could print out any drug

I would like one bakers dozen of these please

 

Hey, this will be a common thing soon. Just wait another one hundred years or so. Haha.

 

I wonder how long before we're able to dump some dirt into a machine and enter a molecular structure for it to create, and out comes a few pounds of LSD or gold.

 

^ true that. If this theoretical machine could create complex compounds requiring many steps of chemical processing like combining reagents of specific ammnts at specific temp and pressure, solvent washes and purification, etc etc, then why would it not be able to make any compound at all? Like rare earth metals and precious metals and gemstone. It seems like it would have endless application, if only the tech was there to support it. Yes it's a ridiculous idea in terms of our technology today, but the computer and internet was a ridiculous idea in 1950. Just something to consider.

 

As of now transmutation of elements can only occur in particle accelerators and nuclear reactions. Compounds are not generally made from pure elements. You usually can't just mix water and air to synthesis something. Well, some organisms can, and a few reactions like Fischer-Tropsch process and the water-gas shift reaction can. Most are only possible on an industrial scale. Some aren't cost effective or realistic, especially transmutation.

Like Lee Cronin himself said, as of now it's science fiction. It's at least a hundred years away, if not hundreds of years.

 

Kickstarter. Now.

Fo Sure'

 

Oh, it's this article again.

He can print single use silicone labware. That's it.

Read up on the synthetic method used to make small-scale batches of a) ibuprofen; b) prozac; c) keflex; and d) insulin, then tell me how this magic machine could make this more economically than large-scale batch production. You might be able to build a device that could cover one of those, but a general purpose drug mill? Not without a monstrously huge leap forward in our understanding of organic chemistry-- on the order of the "4 elements --> 100+ elements" alchemy --> chemistry leap forward.

There's one born every minute, I tells ya. And the first one that says "but... but.... nanotechnology" gets slapped in the face. Nanotech doesn't work like that, cupcake.

 

what about nanotech?

edit: cross-posted with Dave

 

This is a video about a machine that conducts chemical reactions. Not a 3D printer, but probably more akin to what a Mr. Substance machine would look like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihKI...7ntJaLJYKIO1FoYw&index=105&feature=plpp_video

 

Ok, back to work.

 

[My version of a comment that was posted earlier.]

(Someone drops head in prayer) (Very sincere face.)
Please God, let me have one of these machines.
Give me at least a few years of health to play around, making and testing new psychedelics like Shulgin for your glory.
A decade or two is better.
Or better yet you can make me live as long as Job in the bible for your glory.
I will give give to the poor.
I and tithe 10%. No wait, I will tithe 20% for you.
I can be a witness and bring others to the psychedelic truth for your glory.
Pretty please with cherries on top? I promise I will not abuse any more sacred psychedelics.
----------------------------------
In all honesty if there is a God of morals and integrity, God would be all for giving a responsible person one of these machines for psychedelic use. Those that know the truth will agree.

 

Ok, back to work.

Thinking about this some more. I just thought waking from sleep where sometimes we come up with good ideas that this thing is just analogous to our DNA inside our nucleus. So essentially our body has it's own "Auto Zone" or what not. Now that I think of it some more waking a little more. I think he mentioned this. Anyway a Chemcomputer that could make your bodies products would be a good thing perhaps and some home grown viruses to deliver the goods.

 

You can't print out drugs because to do that you need to control matter to the atomic level and bypass all electrostatic forces to bind groups without chemistry or kinetics which is alien technology...I mean...from outer space.

 

I wonder how long before we're able to dump some dirt into a machine and enter a molecular structure for it to create, and out comes a few pounds of LSD or gold.

Can't do gold, platinum, silver, etc because those are elements in and of themselves (that would be alchemy and breaking the nucleus of an atom to change proton numbers/neutron numbers... ask Japan what that does). Basically it can make simple "cheap" compounds. If you wanna make gold, go find gold, melt it down, then let it harden and boom you got gold. No combination of elements will make another element, L2Chemistry. Though isotopes do exist but thats not really the same thing (elements with similar properties to another element due to alterations)

 

[My version of a comment that was posted earlier.]

(Someone drops head in prayer) (Very sincere face.)
Please God, let me have one of these machines.
Give me at least a few years of health to play around, making and testing new psychedelics like Shulgin for your glory.
A decade or two is better.
Or better yet you can make me live as long as Job in the bible for your glory.
I will give give to the poor.
I and tithe 10%. No wait, I will tithe 20% for you.
I can be a witness and bring others to the psychedelic truth for your glory.
Pretty please with cherries on top? I promise I will not abuse any more sacred psychedelics.
----------------------------------
In all honesty if there is a God of morals and integrity, God would be all for giving a responsible person one of these machines for psychedelic use. Those that know the truth will agree.

God has already given us so many wonderful drugs that it is hard to ask for more.
(But not too hard!)

 

what about nanotech?

/slap

 

I still like a good old fashioned chemistry lab '

Lets legalize the precursors P2P and MDP2P and have some fun

 

so you CAN fax acid??

I see what you did there lmfao

 

This guy is so full of shit (unless someone can explain to me how this machine will simplify the vast number of reagents and precursors that will need be kept on hand, along with how said machinery will surmount the drastic variability of those reactions entailed).

ebola

"There are loads of drugs out there that aren't available," Cronin says, "because the population that needs them is not big enough, or not rich enough. This model changes that economy of scale; it could makes any drug cost effective."

Yeah, I agree, this guy does sound completely full of shit. He says that it will make "any drug cost effective;" pardon my french, but are you fucking high? Jesus christ, yeah, because you have a 3D printer with a few simple organic molecules in it that can make sugar or ibuprofen, that means that you can easily and cheaply make taxol. Fuck you, you fucking liar. Loads of drugs that aren't available because people aren't rich enough... you know why they're not rich enough? Because the drugs often cost $10,000 to make a gram of the drug and a single dose is 400 mg, not because pharmaceutical companies are just greedy soulless companies. Sure, some drugs wouldn't be too too difficult to create with some relatively common, cheap, stable simple molecules, but not that many. Using a 3D printer doesn't make most drugs cheaper to produce and almost certainly would not be able to perform some of the complex reactions that require extreme conditions and/or highly toxic, expensive, or reactive reagents. This is such a hyped up bullshit idea. You're not going to have n-butyl/t-butyl lithium in this thing, or H2 gas with a palladium catalyst that must be pressured to something like 10,000 bars to perform a hydrogenation reaction.

But hey, any press is good press, even if you have to be a raving deceiver to get that press, right? Don't get your hopes up, guys.

 

I'd bet he's got funding for the next 15 years now. Slimy bastard.

 

Sounds like a prime specimen of engineer woo...