A team of researchers at the University of South Australia have developed a new tool that could be used to treat acne: nanoparticles. The team’s new approach is described in a recent article published in Nanoscale.
Teenager years bring many things, including both social, physical, and emotional changes. But one of the most visual changes people associate with the adolescent years is acne. This condition. Driven in part by hormonal changes that teenagers experience during this big developmental milestone, acne affects the vast majority of teeners, with nearly 800 million teenagers around the world struggling with acne.
Several treatment options have been developed in the past, first with oral medications and then with topical treatments, which have become the more preferred treatment option for people with acne. However, topical medications have encountered important limitations in recent years, from the development of antibiotic resistance to challenges penetrated through hair follicles in to the skin. As a result, there’s a real need to find new ways to treat acne, which cause a range of physical and social problems for teenagers. Enter nanoparticles.
Specifically, researchers designed the nanoparticles to be incredibly tiny; around 1000 times the size of human hair, allowing them to enter hair follicles in a way that existing topical treatments cannot, at least currently.
Importantly, the nanoparticles contain an antibacterial called Narasin, a drug that is currently used predominantly in the livestock industry to treat bacterial infections, When tested against the bacteria that causes acne, researchers found that Narasin was a potent tool against acne-causing bacteria that has become resistant to many types of medications currently in use. What’s more, the nanoparticles proved to be a vital part of this efficacy. According to the study, Narasin was absorbed at a significantly better rate than if the antibacterial was administered with water. They also found that a topical administration of Narasin proved less effective at delivering the antibacterial compared to the nanoparticle approach.
Sources: Science Daily; Nanoscale
