Spectroscopy Aids Drug-Delivery Research

This is important in cases where the best therapeutic intervention requires delivery at particular concentrations to well-defined locations within the skin.

The Spectrum Spotlight FT-IR offers an array of detectors that acquire spatially resolved spectra very quickly in order to generate an infrared image of the sample, providing IR images in minutes rather than hours or days as was previously necessary. The instrument is the product of PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences (Shelton, CT, USA).

The researchers, from Rutgers University (Newark, NJ, USA), have focused on liposomes for topical, dermal delivery of biologically active molecules. They have successfully used these for the delivery of low- and high-molecular weight molecules into the skin. As an alternative to a virus-mediated delivery system, they have opened the field of dermal gene delivery.

"An advantage of the imaging IR approach is that in addition to mapping of external substances introduced to the skin, the spatial relationships between these external substances and internal skin components may be monitored and correlated,” observed Richard Mendelsohn, professor of chemistry at Rutgers.





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