acmedsci published this video item, entitled “Drug transport nanoparticles | Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu FMedSci” – below is their description.
Professor Uchegbu outlines the chemistry behind her pioneering research into how to effectively and safely deliver drugs to specific parts of the body.
By controlling exactly where a drug is delivered within the body, doctors can develop more effective and more targeted medicines. These in vivo drug transport mechanisms are however notoriously difficult to control.
In this short talk, Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu outlines how she has designed self-assembling polymers and peptides and used these new molecules to produce new ways to package and deliver drugs within the body to hard-to-reach areas such as the brain and the eye. Her research into the mechanisms of drug transport across biological barriers enabled her to create new drug transport nanoparticles. She was the first to show peptides could be delivered across the blood brain barrier and the first to demonstrate peptide transport into the brain using peptide nanoparticle nasal sprays.
Her work has been used to develop the candidate drug Envelta, a nanoparticle-packaged version of enkephalin, which is being reviewed for use as a non-addictive pain medication and could help tackle the US opioid addiction crisis which is killing 15,000 people every year. Her work has also been used to develop biocompatible nasal sprays, new diagnostic platforms and nano-enabled ocular technologies to help treat retinal diseases.
Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu is Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at University College London and Chief Scientific Officer of Nanomerics Ltd, a UCL spin out company.
She gave this presentation as part of the Academy of Medical Sciences New Fellow’s Admissions Day 2021, held virtually in July 2021.
Read more about Professor Uchegbu’s work
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pharmacy/people/professor-ijeoma-uchegbu
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