Spatio-Temporal In Vivo Imaging of Ocular Drug Delivery Systems using Fiberoptic Confocal Laser Microendoscopy

This protocol facilitates screening of new formulations to better understand how modifications affect their tissue residence times, which is critical in designing an optimal drug delivery system. This technique is noninvasive and allows realtime imaging, which reduces the excessive use of animals for sampling. Drug delivery systems can be redesigned for imaging and therapeutic applications by simply including the therapeutic drug and the imaging moiety in one nano-carrier.

This has useful applications in both treating cancer and infectious disease. Demonstrating the procedure will be Rasha Msallam, a senior research fellow from my laboratory. To begin with, two hours before subconjunctival injection, inject the mouse intravenously via tail with 2.5 milligrams per kilogram of Evans blue, or EB.After sedating the mouse with 5%isoflurane, transfer the mouse to a nose cone and maintain sedated mouse on a heating pad.