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Reimagining vision

- Wits University

Research by PhD student Kruti Naik could change the way eye infections and conditions are treated

The doctoral research of Kruti Naik, in the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform (WADDP), focuses on ocular drug delivery.

Although eye drops are the go-to treatment, Naik is determined to find efficient and cheaper ways to treat vision problems.

With about 1 in 6 people in Africa being blind, and a rising number of visual health issues owing to untreated communicable diseases (such as HIV) and non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes and hypertension), her work is timely.

Microneedle eye-patch efficacy

Imagine that a tiny patch with micro-scale needles, much like a contact lens, painlessly delivers medicine to the front part of the eye and specific cells. There’s no wastage, such as with administering eye drops, and there’s no need for refrigeration of the medication – a major challenge in Africa’s healthcare facilities.

Microneedles offer significant potential for creating smart drug delivery systems that are biocompatible, biodegradable, and tailored to specific medical needs.

“We wanted our approach to fight off severe infection of the eye, which we are seeing more of, amid the scourge of antibiotic resistance,” says Naik.

She aims to integrate nanomedicine principles with microneedle delivery systems to further enhance efficiency, targeting, and safety. This combined approach can combat eye infections, degenerative diseases, and inflammation, which are often connected with infectious and non-communicable diseases like diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration.

Naik adds that eye infections can lead to blindness if not treated promptly and efficiently. The technology is being developed to be minimally invasive, precise, and “can make a life-saving difference.”

Infection-fighting hydrogel in sight

Naik’s doctoral research is supervised by Professors Yahya Choonara, Lisa du Toit and Mershen Govender, and Naik is currently on a research visit to the Laverty Lab at Queen’s University Belfast.

Here she is collaborating with Dr Garry Laverty to develop a peptide-based hydrogel that can automatically assemble itself.

The hydrogels fight infections and act as long-lasting implants to deliver medication steadily over time, especially for diseases like HIV, TB, and other chronic illnesses.

Naik was awarded a Wits Foundation UK fellowship to spend time at Queen’s University and to extend her PhD work on microneedles.

Naik’s previous work, published in the journal Drug Delivery and Translational Research, showed that hydrogels are safe, stable and capable of being injected into the eye with fine needles (mimicking the natural vitreous), then releasing medication steadily over weeks.

In meticulous lab studies, hydrogels were gentle on tissues and acted as long-lasting drug depots, reducing the need for repeated invasive procedures.

“What’s exciting about our work is that we can transfer our technology to other disease areas, such as cancer targeting,” she says.

This research is funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) through the NRF/DSI SARChI Programme (Department of Science and Innovation South African Research Chairs Initiative).

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