Sep. 13, 2012 It's not a magic trick and it's not sleight of
hand -- scientists really are using levitation to improve the
drug development process, eventually yielding more effective
pharmaceuticals with fewer side effects. Scientists at the U.S.
Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have
discovered a way to use sound waves to levitate individual
droplets of solutions containing different pharmaceuticals.
While the connection between levitation and drug development may
not be immediately apparent, a special relationship emerges at
the molecular level. At the molecular level, pharmaceutical
structures fall into one of two categories: amorphous or
crystalline. Amorphous drugs typically are more efficiently
taken up by the body than their crystalline cousins; this is
because amorphous drugs are both more highly soluble and have a
higher bioavailability, suggesting that a lower dose can produce
the desired effect. "One of the biggest challenges when it comes
to drug development is in reducing