A Versatile Drug Delivery and Formulation Lab

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A Versatile Drug Delivery and Formulation Lab

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Dr. Lay-Hong Chuah is a pharmacist and drug delivery researcher. She is currently the Focus Group Leader for wound/dermal delivery in the Malaysian Chapter of the Controlled Release Society. She has received numerous invention awards and filed for patents for her formulations. She is also the recipient of the Malaysia National Cancer Council (MAKNA) Cancer Research Award and the APEC - Australia Women in Research Fellowship. Her research focuses on drug delivery systems and nanomedicine. Concerned with the health and wellbeing of rural communities, she has also extended her research to develop water filtration membranes to provide sustainable clean drinking water to rural communities.

One of the formulations, a wound dressing capable of improving wound healing was newly developed in the lab. Rising wound incidence has imposed substantial burdens on healthcare expenditure. Despite being a common presentation in the clinical setting, providing optimal wound care remains a challenge. Normal acute wounds in healthy individuals tend to resolve spontaneously without clinical intervention. However, improper wound care may lead to undesirable complications such as wound infections or abnormal wound healing, resulting in uneven scar tissue formation. The wound dressing developed in the Chuah lab is an all-in-one dressing loaded with vitamin E tocotrienols, made from sustainable and biodegradable polymers. The wound dressing promotes blood clot formation, accelerates wound healing, and reduces scar formation. It has a high absorbent capacity to absorb exudates from wounds caused by burns, cuts and abrasions. Its easy-to-use and time-saving features allow patients to change dressings efficiently at home. The prototype has been successfully developed, optimized and characterized; tested in in vitro as well as in in vivo wound models. The wound dressing showed faster wound healing rates and better scar outcomes. The research continued to progress and is currently in clinical trial phase to test on human volunteers, bringing the research a step closer to translation from bench to bedside.

Another formulation resulted from a multidisciplinary collaboration to develop a water filtration membrane to produce clean drinking water. The idea stemmed from the realization of significant water borne disease transmission in rural areas due to lack of access to clean water. The membrane is formulated to be affordable and practical, with the aim to address global grand challenges through interdisciplinary collaboration, and to achieve the UN-SDG 3 (good health and wellbeing) and 6 (clean water and sanitation) by 2030. The water filtration membrane has been tested in the lab to be able to produce clean drinking water according to WHO standards and is currently being assembled into a working prototype for installation in rural areas.

Chuah is currently an associate professor in the School of Pharmacy, Monash University Malaysia. She is an advocate for women in STEMM research. As a drug delivery researcher who expands her research beyond the field, she strongly believes that drug delivery researchers and formulation scientists can be creative and versatile in their research: that our work should not be limited by our research field, but we could apply our formulation science knowledge to create useful products that are beneficial to the humankind.

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