EyeSlices Qatar

ional spa and in-home anti-aging eye skin treatments lock in moisture and are unique in that they provide an instant cooling sensation without a fridge and are re-usable! Technical information regarding hydrogel technology. A hydrogel is defined as the gel which contains water but is not soluble in water. Such hydrogels have been well-known for a long time, but it is just recently that the hydrogel has attracted much attention because of its novel properties. Among them are chemical crosslinking of PVA with aldehydes such as formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde, PVA crosslinking by irradiation with radiations such as gamma rays, electron beams, and ultraviolet light, PVA crosslinking through coordinate bonding with metal ions such as Ti, Cu, and Co, and PVA crosslinking with the use of boric acid, borax, and Congo Red. However, these proposed methods are not successful in obtaining the hydrated PVA gel which has both the high mechanical strength and the high water content. In other words, an increase in mechanical strength results in low water content, whereas a high water content leads to poor mechanical properties of the PVA gel. The eyeSlices technology is based upon Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) - a hydrophilic polymer which is of special interest for the application in medicine owing to its excellent biocompatibility. Poly(vinyl alcohol) is one of the most ancient polymers and at the same time the most popular one used in this field. It is manufactured through Freeze/thaw cycling of PVA polymer in solution resulting in the formation of physical cross-linking (i.e. weak bonding through a nonpermanent "association" of the polymer chains) PVA hydrogels formed in this manner are thermoreversible and are termed "cryogels". In general, cryogels are solid elastomers containing over 80% water which are produced when solutions of higher molecular weight poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) of high degree of hydrolysis are subjected to one or more freeze-thaw cycles. Such cryogels are tough, slippery, elastomeric, resilient, insoluble in water below 50 degrees Celsius, and nontoxic. Importantly, the techniques utilized to create PVA cryogels do not require the introduction of chemical crosslinking agents or radiation. Cryogels are therefore easily produced with low impact on incorporated bioactive molecules. PVA cryogels are also highly biocompatible. They exhibit very low toxicity (at least partially due to their low surface energy), contain few impurities and their water content can be made commensurate to that of tissue at 80 to 90 wt %. For cryogels, the physical characteristics depend on the molecular weight of the uncrosslinked polymer, the concentration of the aqueous solution, temperature and time of freezing and the number of freeze-thaw cycles. Thus the properties of a cryogel can be modulated. However, since the material's properties change dramatically at every freeze-thaw step, control over the properties of the finished gel is complicated. The methods are applicable to the creation of materials for use in medical, biological and industrial areas including the controlled delivery of agents (which may include proteins, peptides, polysaccharides, genes, DNA, antisense to DNA, ribozymes, hormones, growth factors, a wide range of drugs, imaging agents for CAT, SPECT, x-ray, fluoroscopy, PET, MRI and ultrasound), generation of load bearing implants for hip, spine, knee, elbow, shoulder, wrist, hand, ankle, foot and jaw, generation of a variety of other medical implants and devices (which may include active bandages, trans-epithelial drug delivery devices, sponges, anti-adhesion materials, artificial vitreous humor, contact lens, breast implants, stents and artificial cartilage that is not load bearing (i.e., ear and nose)), any application where gradients (single or multiple) in mechanical properties or structure are required.