Nanoparticle carried drug transdermal delivery in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

Introduction: Nanoparticles have been developed to use them as carriers of drugs and have become very interesting topic worldwide. It has been applied for various pharmaceutical applications especially dermal applications. The main aim of this research is to develop Solid Lipid Nanoparticles (SLNs) loaded with pharmaceutical activities to use as transdermal drug delivery vehicle and to enhance drug therapy in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease locally and systemically. This will overcome some limitations of available treatments of the disease. SLNs have high loading capacity, controlled drug release profile and high bioavailability. Thus, these will help to achieve the high level of drug at the disease site and systematic side effects will be reduced. Their physiological and biodegradable lipids exhibiting low cytotoxicity and toxicity lead to excellent tolerability. Due to its small size, the amount of drug penetration into the skin can be increased. Furthermore, these are able to enhance chemical stability of compounds sensitive to light, oxidation and hydrolysis.

Methodologies: SLNs are formulated and characterized to evaluate skin penetration of rivastigmine. This is then followed by evaluation of efficacy of nanoparticle carrying rivastigmine.

Results: The expected outcome of this project is successful development of nanoparticles, which have potential to serve as efficient vehicle for delivering drug rivastigmine or peptide locally or systemically for enhanced treatment of Alzheimer’s disease as compared to existing therapeutics.