Peptide-like hydrogels as a long-acting injectable delivery technology for the treatment of ocular disease

About the Project

Provide a brief description of the project

Rationale: There is a significant need for innovative treatments to alleviate the burden of macular disease. For example, ~200M people worldwide suffer with age related macular degeneration (AMD) and is expected to rise further in line with an aging population. Current AMD therapy requires regular injections, every 4-8 weeks, into the eye of biologic drugs e.g. antibodies, in an attempt to reach the target site at the back (posterior) of the eye. Regular injections by trained healthcare professionals are expensive and these are associated with poor patient adherence. They often result in severe complications including infection and inflammation. Therefore, treatments that reduce the frequency of administrations and prevent complications without impacting efficacy would be of enormous benefit to patients, their carers/family and healthcare professionals.

Aim: To determine whether our peptide-like hydrogel drug delivery platform has the required characteristics to be employed as a new long-acting injectable delivery technology to extend the efficacy of medicines currently used in the treatment of macular disease e.g. AMD, macular oedema/swelling. We have successfully employed this approach to develop long-acting injectables, administered under the skin (subcutaneously), for combined HIV prevention + contraception. We now wish to explore this concept within ocular drug delivery.

To achieve this, we will use natural but specially tailored molecules similar to peptides, the building blocks of human proteins and tissues, to which drugs can be attached physically (electrostatic interactions) or covalently (chemical bonds). When injected into the eye as a solution, these peptide-like molecules rapidly form a water-based gel depot (a ‘hydrogel’) in response to natural enzymes (phosphatases) and this releases a safe, steady amount of the drugs/biologics for at least 3 months, before the hydrogel biodegrades naturally. Our highly tuneable peptide formulation mimics the biocompatibility of naturally occurring proteins/peptides but with the additional benefit of enhanced biological stability within physiological environments, important for long-acting drug delivery.

Training that will be provided through the research project

As a member of the Russell Group, Queen's University Belfast, which is consistently recognised as one of the leading universities for knowledge exchange in the UK, thus ensuring research is creating jobs, wealth, skills and innovation. The projects lead investigator Dr Laverty is a PhD graduate from the School of Pharmacy and has first-hand knowledge experience of the successful pathway a PhD from Queens University Belfast can provide. For this studentship the student will be trained in the following generic skills; developing writing skills, developing presentation skills, power point for academic presentations and posters, communication skills, introduction to research design, academic plagiarism, basic and advanced statistics, networking and negotiating, lab demonstrating and introduction to ref works. Students are also encouraged to use the Personal Development Planning (PDP) process to build a portfolio on learning, performance and achievement. PDP encourages the students to adopt a good work practice and supports the timely submission of thesis.

The student will receive formal training in the following specialist skills necessary for this project; peptide and peptoid synthesis, drug release protocols, confocal microscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, tissue culture, HPLC, Fourier Transform infra-red spectrometry, circular dichroism, Mass Spectroscopy, NMR, neutron scattering techniques and use of in vivo facilities. The combination of these skills is highly transferable and should give the student a distinct advantage in the employment sector.

Expected impact activities

Healthcare Professionals/Regulators– This project will result in a novel drug delivery system that will serve as a superior alternative to existing formulations for healthcare professionals. The student will engage with individual consultants/physicians and drug regulators, providing knowledge input relating to clinical experimental design and result interpretation. We recognise it is important to instil healthcare practitioner confidence in the technology and obtain their feedback early in development.

Patients– The student will also engage with charities to provide stakeholder engagement activities (patient questionnaires, focus groups). We will explore: patient related factors; in-depth views on experiences and gauge their opinion on current treatments and our peptide-based platform.

• Involved in development of intellectual property
• Attendance at relevant conferences
• Engagement with industry
• Visits to large-scale neutron scattering facilities
• Generation of publications

Funding Notes

This project is not funded; applications are welcome from self-funding candidates.