 |
| Main Menu | News By Date | News By Supplier | News By Category | About Us |
|
NANO-MEDICINE PIONEERS AIM TO REVOLUTIONISE TREATMENT OF EYE DISEASE
Scientists at Cardiff University are leading a top-level UK team to develop ‘nano-medicine’ technology, which could revolutionise the treatment of eye disease and other conditions including cancer and arthritis. The researchers are exploiting nanotechnology, working with tiny particles, to devise the best way of overcoming the body’s natural defences, in order to ensure drugs are delivered where they are needed. "The challenge is to build a small vehicle to carry the drug through the body, without its being recognised as ‘foreign’, and getting it into the target cells in an eye, a tumour or an arthritic joint, for example," said Dr Peter Griffiths, of Cardiff’s School of Chemistry. "We are aiming to create a polymer, a long molecule, to act as a shield for the drug, protecting it from the body’s defences, guiding it into the target cell and then dissolving away safely while the drug dose does its work." This targeting of cells has been pioneered by the joint leader of the project, Professor Ruth Duncan, of the Welsh School of Pharmacy, through an innovation known as ‘polymer therapeutics’, dubbed ‘magic bullet’ technology, which has already progressed into clinical trials for cancer treatments. Professor Duncan has become the first person in the world to develop polymer therapeutics for clinical trial. Now the Cardiff-led team is developing a more advanced second generation of this technology in partnership with the University’s Institute for Tissue Engineering and Repair, to design improved therapies for the treatment of arthritis. The collaborative project undertaken with colleagues from the universities of Oxford, Bristol, Bath and Kings College, London, is supported by a grant of £420,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
|
| ©2008 New Materials International |