Nano-engineering microarray patch enhances long-acting AIDS drug delivery

HIV/AIDS remains a major public health threat, with an estimated 36.9 million people living globally by 2017In the same year, global AIDS-related diseases claimed nearly 1 million lives and 1.8 million new infectionsIn 2017, about 21.7 million people received antiretroviral treatment, including 59 percent of adults and 52 percent of children infected with the virus2016, 42 per cent of diagnoses occurred in the late stages of infection, and the uk's awareness of HIV is declining, underscoring the value of preventive treatmentCurrent methods of providing drugs for the treatment and prevention of HIV are far from ideal and tablets must be taken dailythe project is led by Professor Ryan Donnelly of queen's university school of pharmacy in BelfastProfessor of Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology, DrMarco Siccardi and Professor Andrew Owen, of the University of Liverpool, and Professor Steve Rannard, Professor of Chemistry, are partnersthe research is based on the University of Liverpool's formulation technology, which has been licensed to Tianten Nano Ltd," a company recently separated from the University of Liverpool, that will design and test a new type of transdermal patch with hundreds of tiny protrusions on the surface known as microneedlesAfter painless skin applications, these microneedles dissolve and leave nanoparticles of the drug nanoparticles that treat or prevent HIVThese nanoparticles will dissolve after weeks or months, so patients no longer need to adhere strictly to the oral protocolthis research will leverage the world's leading long-acting drug delivery technology from Liverpool and Belfast, and use advanced computer-based pharmacokinetic models, customized nanoparticle manufacturing processes and exciting new methods to form MAPsNote: The original text has a limitationReference: Novel nano-engineered microneedle for HIV drug deliveryoriginal title: New nanoengineered microneedles for HIV drug delivery