News Release

NTU launches new centre to develop new eye-deas for occular therapeutics

Business Announcement

Nanyang Technological University

Dr. Tina Wong, and Professor Subbu Venkatraman, Ocular Therapeutic Engineering Centre

image: Dr Tina Wong (left) and Professor Subbu Venkatraman are directors of NTU's Ocular Therapeutic Engineering Centre and partners in research view more 

Credit: Nanyang Technological University

For glaucoma patients, taking daily medication will soon become a thing of the past.

Instead, with Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) newest solution, a simple, quick and painless injection four times a year would be enough.

The solution contains an anti-glaucoma drug wrapped in nano-sized capsules, and is delivered by an injection into the outer layer in the front of the eye (conjunctiva) by the doctor.

The nanocarrier will then slowly release the drug over several weeks. LipoLat, as it is known, is now ready for clinical trials.

Extensive pre-clinical studies have shown that this single injection is as effective at treating glaucoma as taking daily eye drops for up to 3 months.

Forgetting to administer the daily eye drops is the most common problem faced by glaucoma sufferers, and failure in taking the eyedrops correctly on a daily basis can result in a tragic and permanent loss of vision.

There are also many problems with eye drops, including allergies, unpleasant side effects, remembering to take them at the correct time, correct insertion technique, storage and hygiene.

Such an innovative 'eye-dea' like LipoLat is what NTU's latest research centre launched today - Ocular Therapeutic Engineering Centre - has as its mission.

Housed at NTU's School of Materials Science and Engineering, OTEC builds upon the School's successful research collaboration with the Singapore Eye Research Institute.

Centre Director, Professor Subbu Venkatraman, who is also the School Chair, said the centre will build on the strong research collaboration between clinical scientists and NTU technologists, to develop new drug delivery systems for the eye.

"I hope to showcase this as a good example of how close interactions between medical practitioners and technology providers can lead to rapid translation of ideas to the clinic, such as LipoLat," said Prof Venkatraman. "We are confident that the products co-developed at the centre will lead on to further discoveries and innovations in ocular therapy."

Working closely with Prof Venkatraman as the Co-Director of the centre is Dr Tina Wong, an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering and a senior consultant at the Singapore National Eye Centre. She is also Head of the Ocular Therapeutics and Drug Delivery Research Group at the Singapore Eye Research Institute.

"Finding the right person with the scientific and technological know-how to help solve a clinical problem or improve the way in which we can treat our patients better is the vital first step to achieving a fruitful, long lasting, research collaboration," Dr Wong said. "Prof Venkatraman and I work well together as a team to bring cutting edge technological solutions to the clinic."

Dr Wong who is a recipient of the Clinician Scientist Award from the Ministry of Health, has developed, together with Prof Venkatraman, a novel glaucoma surgical implant and a sustained drug delivery gel for combating post-operative scarring following glaucoma surgeries. Both these innovations have shown to improve surgical outcomes in glaucoma from early studies.

Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide and affects an estimated 80 million people. Glaucoma affects about 6 per cent of the Singapore population, of which 3 per cent are over the age of 50, and accounts for 40 per cent of blindness here. It is a chronic, lifelong condition and if untreated, causes loss of vision through irreparable damage to the optic nerve.

The Ocular Therapeutic Engineering Centre will have about ten full time scientists. Among its initial projects, which are individually funded by various funding sources and agencies, include an implantable device which can constantly monitor the pressure changes within the eye in real time.

Future projects

The centre is also looking into developing a novel nano-carrier system which will be able to deliver drugs for a sustained period of time, to the back of the eye, the retina, when injected in the front of the eye. Currently, only regular painful and invasive injections directly into the back of eye can deliver drugs to treat retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.

Prof Venkatraman said he and his researchers look forward to working closely with NTU's new medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, which is jointly set up with Imperial College London.

The new medical school is set to take in its first batch of 50 students in July this year and is starting its research and development in infections and metabolic diseases and neuroscience.

Both the new ocular centre and the new medical school contribute to NTU's research strengths in Future Healthcare, which is one of the university's Five Peaks of Excellence.

The Peaks of Excellence are five key areas of research which NTU hopes to make a global mark in by 2015 under its 5-year strategic plan. The other peaks include Sustainability, New Media, Innovation Asia, and the Best of East and West.

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Media contact:

Lester Kok
Assistant Manager
Corporate Communications Office
Nanyang Technological University
Tel: 6790 6804
Email: lesterkok@ntu.edu.sg

About Nanyang Technological University

A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has 33,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Engineering, Business, Science, and Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences. This year, NTU will enrol the first batch of students at its new medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, which is set up jointly with Imperial College London.

NTU is also home to several world-class autonomous institutes – the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering – and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N) and Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI).

A fast-growing university with an international outlook, NTU is putting its global stamp on Five Peaks of Excellence: Sustainable Earth, Future Healthcare, New Media, New Silk Road, and Innovation Asia.

Besides the main Yunnan Garden campus, NTU also has a satellite campus in Singapore's science and tech hub, one-north and is setting up a third campus in Novena, Singapore's medical district.

For more information, visit www.ntu.edu.sg.


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