My undergraduate biodesign team, Team ForSight, was invited to participate in the Rice 360° Sixth Annual Undergraduate Global Health Technologies Design Competition. My team mates, Amanda and Ian, and I presented our design for a drug-eluting contact lens targeted for use in developing countries, to deliver antifungal drug natamycin to treat corneal ulcers.
There, we also received feedback from industry and clinical experts on ways to improve our product design to increase its usability both in a developing world setting.
Here is an abstract of our presentation to Rice 360:
Corneal ulceration is a leading cause of preventable blindness in the developing world, where the cost of treatment and the lack of accessible medical facilities pose barriers to administering care.
We have designed a proof-of-concept prototype for a novel drug eluting contact lens, which delivers drugs directly to the cornea. The design consists of a layer of PDMS, a soft, biocompatible polymer, to keep the contact’s shape, and a layer of biodegradable PLGA, which contains the drug in suspension.
Using natamycin, the only FDA-approved ocular antifungal drug, we have demonstrated the effectiveness of our contact design to clear yeast in agar diffusion tests. We also showed that our degradation design delivers drug more efficiently and in a more sustained fashion than both eyedrops and a diffusion limited model. Our contact lens prototype provides a proof of concept for a low-cost, easy-to-use ocular drug delivery device.
For more information on our product, please contact me.