ORLANDO, Fla., June 19 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have created a nanoparticle to be used as a drug delivery device in treating glaucoma, an eye disease that affects millions of people.
University of Central Florida Professor Sudipta Seal said the nanoparticle can safely move across the blood-brain barrier, thereby becoming an effective non-toxic tool for drug delivery.
Seal and colleagues from North Dakota State and Duke universities said the nanoparticle is useful since barely three percent of existing glaucoma medicines penetrate into the eye. Previous experiments with nanoparticles have shown not only high penetration rates but also little patient discomfort. The miniscule size of the nanoparticles makes them less abrasive than some of the complex polymers now used in most eye drops, Seal said.
Seal and his team created a specialized cerium oxide nanoparticle and bound it with a compound that has been shown to block the activity of an enzyme (hCAII) believed to play a central role in causing glaucoma.
The research by Seal, Sanku Mallik of North Dakota State University and Duke University undergraduate Serge Reshetnikov is to be reported in the June 28 issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry C.
