Juewen Liu, Professor, Department of Chemistry
Congratulations to the Department of Chemistry’s Dr. Juewen Liu on receiving an $872,000 grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the project titled “Aptamer-functionalized liposomes for targeted delivery of drugs to treat dry eye disease.”
Dry eye disease (DED) affects 1.4 billion people globally and imposes a substantial economic burden, estimated at $24,331 CAD per mild-to-severe patient in Canada. Prescription treatments currently rely on topical eye drops that must be used two to four times daily at high doses because much of the drug is washed away by rapid tear clearance. This can irritate healthy eye tissues and cause undesirable side effects.
Liu will address these challenges by developing a new, longer-lasting eye drop that delivers medication more effectively to diseased areas of the eye. The approach uses tiny drug-carrying particles called liposomes, which help protect and stabilize the medication. To ensure the drug stays the right location, the liposomes will be coated with aptamers - short DNA sequences designed to recognize and bind to damaged corneal tissue affected by DED.
The multidisciplinary team also includes Dr. Lyndon Jones from the Centre for Ocular Research and Education at the University of Waterloo and Dr. Sheardown from McMaster University. With the grant, the team will move forward to create the first aptamer-conjugated liposome therapy for DED, providing strong evidence to support future clinical trials.