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Vaccine Patch Removes Needle Pain
wog777 writes "Researchers led by Mark Prausnitz of Georgia Institute of Technology reported their research on microneedles in Sunday's edition of Nature Medicine. A microneedle contains needles so small you don't even feel them. Attached to a patch like a Band-Aid, the little needles barely penetrate the skin before they dissolve and release their vaccine."
Immunizations are certainly the number one reason why children between the ages of about 9 months and six years hate going to the doctor and will kick and scream and flail as soon as they see anybody come into the exam room with a stethoscope. Vaccine patches would be great, particularly if they made it look like a sticker (which are second only to popsicles in the ability to placate an irritated youngster). Now if they'd only figure out a way to make looking in the ears and mouth easier, we'd be set!
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
It is often said that true genius is coming up with the idea that makes everyone say "I could have thought of that".
One of the problems with transdermal patches has always been one of controlling dosage. This is because the skin is only permeable to lipids, thanks to layers of keratin on the outside and the basement membrane lying inconveniently just before you get to any blood vessels. So anything that you needed to give your patient via the skin had to be fat-soluble, or it just wouldn't work. And then you have the problems of concentration gradients, skin thickness, how long you leave the patch on, and how "greasy" that person's natural skin is anyway. That makes for a lot of variables in delivery. Which means you can never be exactly sure of the dose.
By piercing through the skin's outer layers into the dermis with a "microneedle", suddenly you've eliminated a few things: 1) You can deliver hydrophyllic substances (like certain viruses or their components, for example) and 2) you can control dosage much much more accurately because you can be sure that what you're delivering is going to make it to the bloodstream versus lying around in the epidermis and or never getting off the patch in the first place.
I foresee that this technology will soon be used for much more than pediatric vaccine delivery and the creators will become very rich indeed. This doctor thinks it's a great idea. In fact the only problem is going to be for those allergic people - with previous patches all they would get is red skin, an itch, and maybe a localized rash. Now they risk a full blown type I allergic reaction.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Unless it's administered by microneedle.
So now when the kids misbehave I won't be able to threaten them with shots from the doctor. Takes the fun right out of parenting...
Better known as 318230.
I can see it now, the horror story of the future. A killer challenges you to a co-op game of Starcraft 3 and after you pwn some nubs, you high five!
"Wait, what is this, why did you have a band aid in your hand?" *passes out*
"The pwning has just begun, Billy Lumpkins. I'll teach you to troll the warlock forum."
There's nothing a double hit, if you know what I mean.
You mean you accidentally the decaf?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
has anybody else ever wondered what would happen if one were to crop-dust a heavily populated area with a suitably light-stabilized LSD solution? Or distributed a genetically engineered virus through the ventilation system of the DEA headquarters that spliced in the necessary DNA sequences to make those exposed capable of synthesizing endogenous THC?
You, sir, have just posted your way in a very exclusive database somewhere deep in the basement of the Department of Homeland security.
I've put splinters in. Without anesthetic, because I am a warrior.