Department Researchers Honoured with UCC “Invention of the Year” Award
The Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics congratulates Dr Rasha Alshaikh and Prof Christian Waeber (School of Pharmacy/Dept. of Pharmacology and Therapeutics) and Dr Katie Ryan (School of Pharmacy) for their UCC Research and Innovation Award in the “Invention of the Year” category.
UCC wants to recognise ingenuity and hard work of innovators, and the “Invention of the Year” award acknowledges an academic, researcher or team whose innovative research has led to the creation of intellectual property (IP) that has the best potential to be commercialised via a new service or product. Rewarded inventions should have the potential to make major technological progress and show a high degree of inventiveness and should also display a recognisable benefit to society or the environment, enhance the reputation of UCC innovation, and demonstrate potential economic success.
Our researchers worked at the interface between pharmacology and pharmaceutics to design a novel drug formulation that will enable the controlled delivery of therapeutics via solid implants with unique physicochemical properties. Because these implants combine two different drugs, they can target two independent disease-causing pathways. This will increase their efficacy and decrease treatment resistance. This invention has the potential to significantly improve the management of refractory Diabetic Macular Oedema and Age-related Macular Degeneration, two major causes of vision loss (>250 million patients worldwide).