b: Magnetic Delivery of Drugs to the Inner Ear
Collaborators: Isaac Rutel, Kenneth Dormer
The inner ear is behind the blood/brain barrier and hence it is difficult to delivery drugs to inner ear diseases. Magnetic drug delivery provides an option for directing drugs from the middle ear through the round window membrane into the inner ear. There are two options here:
- a strong and large magnet can pull drugs through the patients head from the opposite side or
- if it was possible to magnetically push, then a small device could push particles in from the same side of head (device held at left ear for treating the left inner ear).
My group has successfully designed, and is now optimizing, a simple arrangement of magnets that can push nano-particles away from themselves.
The system has been validated experimentally in-vitro at Oklahoma university (by Isaac Rutel) and animal tests are planned next.
