Behind the headlines

28 February 2019
Winter 2019

Dr David Robert Grimes looks at the eye health issues that are making the news.

TINY ROBOTS TRAVEL THROUGH THE EYE TO DELIVER DRUGS

A joint German-Chinese research team has successfully engineered nanorobots that can travel through the eye to deliver medicine directly to the retina at unprecedented speeds. 

Accurately delivering drugs to the retina has long been a problem; both eye drops and intravitreal injections rely on passive diffusion – inherently random and typically slow – to make sure medications reach the target. This limits dose accuracy and the speed at which medicines can be administered to the retina. 

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