Page 51 - Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Proceedings 2017-18

School of Engineering
Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Drug Delivery Approaches for Pharmaceutical Intervention to Control Myopia

Supervisor: CHAU Ying / CBE
Student: CHEN Longfei / CBME Course: UROP1100, Summer
LI He / SENG UROP1000, Summer

Myopia, also known as short-sightedness, is an optical focusing anomaly. One kind of myopia is produced by exceeding
eyeball elongation called myopic growth. Study [1], [2] and [3] revealed that a native protein called Apolipoprotein A1
(ApoA1) have the potential to inhibit the myopic growth through photoreceptor cells uptake. Photoreceptor cells are
located in retina, which is a posterior segment of eye structure. Study [4] provided varies approaches for drug delivery
systems (DDS) to access to posterior segments, including topical pathway, intravitreal injection pathway as well as
transscleral pathway. In this study, we mainly focus on topical delivery pathway of ApoA1 towards retina.

Nanoparticles for Delivering Nucleic Acids to the Retina

Supervisor: CHAU Ying / CBE
Student: HOQUE Ayman/ SENG Course: UROP1100, Summer

The retina has a multitude of gene targets for specific disease including glaucoma, age related macular degeneration
(AMD) and diabetic retinopathy. These diseases affecting the posterior segment of the eye are the common reasons for
retinal degeneration among citizens, especially aged people. Although for diseases like glaucoma, typical treatment
largely relies on physical surgery, in recent years many new drugs are being approved, including nucleotides.

Structure of the eye
The project aims to understand how the parameters of nanoparticles influence their distribution after intravitreal
injection. These parameters include size, charge and surface ligands. The objective is to examine the RNAi silencing
efficiency of retinal targeting nanoparticles by varying the composition of liposomes.

Supervisor: CHAU Ying / CBE
Student: SABRINA Jacqueline Cheryl / CHEM Course: UROP1100, Spring
UROP2100, Summer

41