Buoyancy-Driven Fluid Dynamics for Enhanced Ocular Drug Delivery

Citation

O'Gara, Stephanie Lea (2025) Buoyancy-Driven Fluid Dynamics for Enhanced Ocular Drug Delivery. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/18vw-4r15. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:05282025-170616092

Abstract

The CDC has identified vision loss as a growing public health concern, with eye disease prevalence on the rise. Three of the most common and vision-threatening eye diseases, wet age-related macular degeneration, proliferative diabetic retinopathy, and diabetic macular edema, are typically managed through periodic intravitreal injections. However, treatment effectiveness varies. Given that the half-life of the drug is limited, one possible cause of the ineffective treatment is inefficient delivery to the target region. This thesis investigates heat-induced convective flow in an in-vitro eye model as a method for enhancing drug delivery by accelerating fluid transport.

First, an optical distortion study was conducted to identify a vitreous model that matches both the viscosity of the human vitreous and the refractive index of the eye model. Next planar two-component and volumetric three-component flow visualization and measurement experiments capture the impact of thermal pad size on the resulting flow fields, with consideration given to particle trajectories for targeted delivery. Finally, a physics-informed neural network, trained on planar velocity data and tested against additional planes from volumetric measurements, demonstrates the potential for data-driven modeling to simplify future flow visualization experiments. The outcomes of this work further our fundamental understanding of fluid dynamics in the eye and encourage continued investigation into interdisciplinary approaches for improving drug delivery, and ultimately, patient outcomes.

Thesis Files