Development of thermo-responsive micellar antibiotic eye drops to combat surgical site MRSA infections

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)-related surgical site ocular infections continue to be a significant clinical issue due to limitations such as the poor ocular retention, low ocular bioavailability, and frequent dosing of conventional topical antibiotic eye drops, which results to subtherapeutic medication and lower patient compliance in the treatment of these infections. Advanced ocular drug delivery systems (ODDS) such as nano-sized in-situ gelling system (thermo-responsive micellar antibiotic eye drop) is a promising platform for sustained ophthalmic drug delivery because it allows the formulation to be instilled easily as a liquid at room temperature and instantly transition into a gel depot upon contact with physiological eye temperature (approximately 34 degrees Celsius) coupled with its small size, which improves penetration ability, increased drug solubility, enhanced ocular bioavailability, prolonged retention on and sustained long-term drug release at the ocular surface, improved mucoadhesion, more accurate dosing, and more patient compliance – all of which could potentially enhance the treatment of MRSA-related surgical site infections. The purpose of this project is to develop doxycycline-loaded thermo-responsive micellar eye drops using generally regarded as safe (GRAS) excipients, such as chitosan which has proven efficacy against MRSA, characterize the eye drops and evaluate them for sustained surgical site ocular drug delivery and MRSA infection control.