Most ocular surgical procedures take approximately 60 min to complete, the anaesthetic property of the safest drug, tetracaine, is initiated in a few minutes and lasts approximately 10-15 min. The purpose of the present study was to develop an ocular tetracaine formulation which can produce an immediate onset of action and/or longer duration of action during the entire surgical procedure. Tetracaine-loaded microparticle formulation was prepared by the method of spray-drying and characterized in terms of size, zeta potential, morphology, thermal stability and release pattern. The study reports a microparticulate ocular formulation with minimum cytotoxicity and optimum cellular uptake. In addition, microencapsulated tetracaine was found to significantly increase the duration of action of the drug up to 4-fold. Taken together, the results presented in this work described albumin-chitosan microparticles to be an effective delivery platform for ocular anaesthetic agents and a potential treatment of various ocular diseases.

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Antisense molecules that pertain to ribonucleic acid (RNA) and complementary to the messenger RNA (mRNA) are produced by transcription of a given gene. Antisense oligonucleotides have emerged as potential gene-specific therapeutic agents that are currently undergoing evaluation in clinical trials for a variety of diseases. When administered orally, antisense oligionucleotides have poor bioavailability as they are rapidly degraded by the acid in the stomach and by the enzymes in the intestine. Therefore, the enhancement of bioavailability after oral administration is highly desirable. This article shows the enhanced bioavailability of antisense oligonucleotides that targets nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) mRNA after encapsulating in an inert, biodegradable albumin polymer matrix that was administered via the oral route into a rat model. The bioavailability of the antisense oligonucleotides to NF-κB in microencapsulated form was compared to the solution form of the drug upon oral administration. The solution form had a low bioavailability of 9%, whereas the bioavailability for the microencapsulated form of the drug increased up to 70%. Moreover, the other pharmacokinetic parameters including half-life (t1/2) and volume of distribution (Vd) increased for the microencapsulated form compared to the solution form of the drug.

Source separation of urine is a novel strategy that facilitates improved nutrient recovery and micropollutant management. The Rich Earth Institute operates the United States' first regional urine recycling program, collecting source-separated urine from households and producing a sanitized fertilizer product for use by local farmers. The purpose of this program is to provide practical experience and quantitative data on all stages of the urine recycling process, and to create a platform to allow detailed research into specific aspects of the process in a real-world context. Current research topics at the Institute include the fate of pharmaceutical and biological constituents when urine is used as fertilizer, the effect on crop yield of urine fertilizer in comparison with synthetic fertilizer, and methods for transforming and concentrating urine to reduce the cost of storage and transport.

This treatment was successful in curbing ventricular remodeling by suppressing NF-κB activation.