Commercially available ocular drug delivery systems are effective but less efficacious to manage diseases/disorders of the anterior segment of the eye. Recent advances in nanotechnology and molecular biology offer a great opportunity for efficacious ocular drug delivery for the treatments of anterior segment diseases/disorders. Nanoparticles have been designed for preparing eye drops or injectable solutions to surmount ocular obstacles faced after administration. Better drug pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, non-specific toxicity, immunogenicity, and biorecognition can be achieved to improve drug efficacy when drugs are loaded in the nanoparticles. Despite the fact that a number of review articles have been published at various points in the past regarding nanoparticles for drug delivery, there is not a review yet focusing on the development of nanoparticles for ocular drug delivery to the anterior segment of the eye. This review fills in the gap and summarizes the development of nanoparticles as drug carriers for improving the penetration and bioavailability of drugs to the anterior segment of the eye.
Transparent ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors are an essential component of nextgeneration "see-through" electronics. However, the current photodetectors often suffer from relatively slow response speeds and high driving voltages. Here, all-solution-processed UV photodetectors are reported that are facilely prepared from environmentally friendly and abundant materials. The UV photodetectors are composed of a titanium dioxide thin film as the photosensitive layer sandwiched between two different transparent electrodes to form asymmetric Schottky junctions. The photodetector with high optical transparency can operate at zero bias because of spontaneous separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs by the built-in electric field. The resulting self-powered photodetector displays high sensitivity to broadband UV light (200-400 nm). In particular, an ultrafast response speed up to 44 ns is obtained, representing a significant improvement over those of the conventional transparent photodetectors. Moreover, the photodetector has been successfully applied, for the first time, in a UV communication system as the self-powered signal receiver. This work uniquely combines the features of high optical transparency and self-power ability into UV photodetectors and would enable a broad range of optoelectronic applications.
Although great efforts have been made to develop long-acting injectable hormonal contraceptives for more than four decades, few long-acting injectable contraceptives have reached the pharmaceutical market or even entered clinical trials. On the other hand, in clinical practice there is an urgent need for injectable long-acting reversible contraceptives which can provide contraceptive protection for more than 3 months after one single injection. Availability of such products will offer great flexibility to women and resolve certain continuation issues currently occurring in clinics. Herein, we reviewed the strategies exploited in the past to develop injectable hormonal contraceptive dosages including drug microcrystal suspensions, drug-loaded microsphere suspensions and in situ forming depot systems for long-term contraception and discussed the potential solutions for remaining issues met in the previous development.
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