Current Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences

263-269

Authors: Kunal Arora, Sumita Singh and Lovely Chaurasia

The main aim of this review is to focus on the various kinds of approaches which are used in ophthalmic drug delivery. Ophthalmic drug delivery system is used to treat various conditions associated with eye. The main purpose of a formulation designer is to formulate an eye formulation which could reside in the eye in an optimum concentration and for a proper duration for its proper effect. The main problem seen in the conventional dosage forms is their poor bioavailability due to fast precorneal drug loss primarily due to nasolacrimal drainage. The residence time of conventional formulations is also very less in the eye resulting into minimal advantages. In order to combat all these problems, now days the pharmaceutical scientists are very much involved in the research towards the novel approaches of ophthalmic drug delivery. The present paper enlists the important novel formulations which have been developed recently and explore their various advantages over conventional forms.

278-284

Authors: Alka Gupta, R N Gupta, G M Kannan, Pankaj Gupta and R Vijayaraghavan

Sulphur mustard (bis (2-chloroethyl) sulfide, SM) is a powerful vesicating chemical warfare agent that causes profound injuries to the eyes, lungs and skin. Despite intensive research following the first use of SM in World War I, there is still no useful pretreatment or therapeutic antidote available. This agent remains a constant chemical threat. A potential approach to combating the debiliting effects of this agent is the use of compounds that can react with this material before it interacts with critical macromolecules. Glutathione (GSH), a tripeptide that exists in high concentrations in cells, reacts with SM and is involved in SM detoxification. Amifostine is a synthetic aminothiol, has been extensively used as a radioprotector. This prompted us to evaluate the protective efficacy of GSH, Amifostine and DRDE-07 (S-2(2-aminoethyl amino) ethyl phenyl sulfide) (synthesized in our lab) against SM toxicity in vitro in HeLa cell line. All these compounds are thiol group containing compounds. Pretreatment of HeLa cell with these cytoprotectants led to decrease in cytotoxicity after SM exposure. The protective efficacy of above compounds were evaluated against sulphur mustard using HeLa cells. The above compounds were added to the media 1 hr before the SM exposure and incubated for 24 hrs. cell viability by MTT assay and LDH leakage were measured as end point.