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It’s good news for those with a fear of needles. Researchers from Rutgers University in the United States are working on a new method of drug delivery through the skin. They believe that this technique could be used for needleless vaccinations. Their findings are published in the specialized journal Nature Communications.
Vaccine, medication: a needle-free injection method The technique employed by these researchers involves applying an “electrospray” to the skin, which is an “industrial spray coating process.” “In electrospray deposition, manufacturers apply high voltage to a flowing liquid, such as a biopharmaceutical product, converting it into fine particles,” they explain. Each of these droplets evaporates as it moves towards a target area, depositing a solid precipitate from the original solution.
This method was not invented by these scientists; it is already used in some medical patches. In reality, this team has perfected it to better control the target region in the spraying zone and the electrical properties of the microscopic particles deposited. “Current methods only achieve about 40% efficiency,” says one of the lead authors of this research, Jonathan Singer. However, thanks to the advanced engineering techniques they have developed, they can now achieve 100% efficiency.
What could be the applications of these needleless injections? This increased efficiency gives researchers hope for its application in vaccination, but this innovative technique could be used in many other medical fields. Indeed, these materials “are used in medical devices implanted in the body, such as stents, defibrillators, and pacemakers,” as the authors point out. “Being able to apply a product with 100% efficiency means that no material would be wasted, which could make it cost-effective for coating devices or vaccines in this manner,” says Sarah Park, a doctoral student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Rutgers University and co-author of this scientific article. She adds that the method could also be more cost-effective for drug production compared to certain bioactive materials. Their future work will be dedicated, among other things, to researching substances compatible with this administration technique.
