The use of therapeutic eye drops to treat the front of the eye is not optimal, as the liquid is quickly washed away by tears, necessitating their re-instillation on an hourly basis. Drug-releasing contact lenses are not a new concept, but it has been a challenge to develop a material capable of continuously releasing drugs into the eye over a sustained period of days or even weeks.
CORE’s biomaterials laboratory has developed novel lens materials capable of sustaining the release of antifungal and antimicrobial drugs into the eye, by “packaging” the drugs into nanoparticles before loading them onto the contact lens.
More about CORE’s work with drug delivery:
Phan,C. -M, Bajgrowicz,M., Gao,H., Subbaraman,L. N., Jones,L. W. Release of fluconazole from contact lenses using a novel in vitro eye model. Optom Vis Sci 2016;93,4: 387-94.
Phan C, Bajgrowicz M, Subbaraman L, Jones L. Release of moxifloxacin from daily disposable contact lenses using an in vitro eye model: Impact of artificial tear fluid composition and mechanical rubbing. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2016;57: E-abstract 1474.