A Brighton University scientist has managed a breakthrough in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Side effects from drugs used to treat the condition can sometimes be more painful and problematic than the condition itself.

Declan Naughton believes he has found a way to overcome these side effects by using a "magic bullet".

Dr Naughton, who is based at the school of pharmacy and biomolecular sciences, has spent ten years researching the condition.

He has studied the tissue in arthritic joints and discovered they always have a low oxygen content.

Now he has found a way of ensuring a drug will target that tissue and not the whole of the body by attaching vitamin E to it.

The vitamin envelops the drug and will only release it when it comes across something with a low oxygen content.

The drug and the vitamin E are therefore directly targeted at the place in the body that really needs it.

Dr Naughton, who lives in Shoreham, said: "It is the most exciting finding I've ever made in all of the years that I have been studying the arthritic joint.

"The use of low oxygen levels in the joint for vitamin-based drug targeting is a real opportunity to bypass the side effects that currently limit the use of these amazing drugs."

Dr Naughton has just published his work in the latest edition of the international journal Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews.