London: A Ghanaian researcher is developing lab-on-a-chip technology integrated with artificial intelligence to accelerate drug discovery and reduce the cost of developing medicines. The innovation is expected to support healthcare research and local drug development efforts in Ghana and across Africa.
According to Ghana News Agency, Dr. Ofosua Adi-Darko, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana School of Pharmacy, said the technology could shorten timelines for developing medicines and vaccines while reducing reliance on costly laboratory infrastructure and animal testing. Her work at Imperial College London is supported by a fellowship funded by Schmidt Sciences in collaboration with the Governments of the United Kingdom and Ghana.
Speaking to Ghanaian journalists during a UK-Ghana Science, Technology and Innovation media study tour at Imperial College London, Dr. Adi-Darko explained that the lab-on-a-chip system used microfluidic chips to simulate biological environments such as the human intestine. These chips manipulate very small volumes of liquid in nanolitres and picolitres within microchannels to analyze how drugs move through biological membranes, mimicking what happens in the human body.
Dr. Adi-Darko emphasized that the chips contained wells and channels enabling multiple experiments to run simultaneously, allowing scientists to observe how drug compounds crossed artificial membranes. This capability significantly reduces the time and cost involved in drug discovery by allowing hundreds of experiments to run simultaneously.
The technology also enables early-stage screening of compounds, reducing the need for animal testing. Artificial intelligence is integrated to analyze large datasets, detect patterns, and predict outcomes, allowing for more accurate predictions about drug behavior. This approach supports efficient testing of locally sourced compounds, including natural products, and aids in Ghana's efforts to develop vaccines and locally manufactured medicines by improving early-stage research.
Dr. Adi-Darko began the fellowship in September last year and is expected to complete the one-year program before returning to Ghana. She is collaborating with researchers at the Imperial College AI for Science Centre on the development of AI-driven scientific tools.