Diabetic retinopathy and nanotechnology
Diabetic retinopathy is a leading cause of blindness and one of the many complications which may have to deal with diabetes. An estimated 40% – 45% of patients with diabetes have some form of this complication.
The cause of diabetic retinopathy is a high blood glucose. Over time, glucose will slowly thicken the walls of the capillaries, making it more difficult for nutrients to pass from the blood into the tissues that need them. Since the retina is one of the more metabolically active tissues of the body needs more nutrients, one of the first tissues.
An aggressive control of blood sugar levels significantly reduces the risk of occurrence of this complication. The disease takes years to develop, so that diabetic patients have an opportunity to change your lifestyle to slow or even halt the process.
Once retinopathy has developed, the treatments are limited. Currently, doctors use lasers to physically destroy new blood vessels and cauterized. The process slows down the continuing loss of vision, but does not return the vision already lost. It is therefore important that patients with diabetes undergo regular eye examinations in order to detect the problem in time.
Dr. Uday Kompella, from the University of Nebraska and recently recruited by the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Centre for Health Sciences (Health Sciences Center), University of Colorado Denver, is applying nanotechnology to the formulation of drugs for diabetic retinopathy. Dr. Kompella leads a research group of 10 scientists focused on new formulations of drugs for the treatment of ocular diseases.
The process involves mixing the drug with a specially designed polymer. The chemistry of the polymer must match that of the drug. Although the chemistry is complex, synthetic techniques are fairly basic. The nanoparticles are created bathing the dissolution of drug and polymer with intensity and energy of a specific frequency. The polymer around the drug to create particles instead of mixing with it, following the same principles that keep separate water and oil.
Once created the particles, the various solutes are removed by evaporation techniques and the particles are collected by high speed centrifugation. This creates tiny pill injections of long duration. Once the drug encapsulated in the polymer, the nanoparticles can be coated with a second molecule that directs the drug into a specific tissue. Drugs that inhibit hair growth are still at an experimental stage, these drugs are what Dr. Kompella is considering for its new formulation process.
Although it will take several years before this technique is approved by the FDA, members of the team of Dr. Kompella drugs have been run successfully, to the eyes of diabetic rats, using these delivery systems.
Posted in 
Tags: