With the development of civilization into urban areas, agriculture has been forced to adapt to less space and limited resources. Developments in urban farming and robotics have produced the personal food computer, a device producing a controlled environment for hydroponic plant growth. As many pharmaceuticals originate from chemicals found in plants, investigation of chemicals relevant to human health can be economically performed using this controlled environment. Advances to the food computer which aid in this research include a cloud-based system for collecting data across multiple devices, weather simulation recipes supported by global weather data and artificial intelligence techniques, and automated plant monitoring and reporting. Several devices have been built to work with these systems and research is underway in a variety of projects including preventative medicine and drug development.