The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is treating onychomycosis for the millions of people around the world who are suffering from this painful and dangerous disease. Onychomycosis, or toenail fungus, has been shown to cause significant psychosocial issues and lead to dangerous medical complications. Currently, onychomycosis is treated topically, but these drugs are unable to permeate the nail and therefore are unable to reach and treat the fungus. Our technology has found success using ultrasound to increase the delivery of the drug to the nailbed. The onychomycosis market is estimated to be $3.1B with an 8.3% growth rate. Additionally, our technology may potentially have applications in podiatry, the nail salon market and as well as direct-to-customer markets.
This I-Corps project utilizes therapeutic ultrasound for improving treatment success of onychomycosis. Due to poor nail permeation, the most commonly used topical drug has a cure rate of only 36% after 6 months of daily application. The research group has performed tests in both porcine and human nails and these tests found that ultrasound increases nail permeation by up to 6 times. Safety modeling studies found that the application of therapeutic ultrasound to the toe is safe. The laboratory identified the likely mechanisms of ultrasound action of drug delivery through the nail to be cavitation-induced pits production in the nail surface and streaming which causes the movement of fluid within a localized area.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
