Let's face it, nobody likes getting injections. Sadly, they're the only way the medicine can reach our vitals quickly and start working its magic to make our illness go away.
However, researchers have created a new way to inject medicines into our body that's not only fast but also painless.
MIT
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT have created a fast-performing skin patch that can easily transfer medication with simple contact with the body.?
Unlike ointments that cannot really go deep into the skin, these patches (fitted with micro-needles) have a unique chemical coating that needs to be applied on the skin and removed within a minute. The patch is less than a centimetre in length and has a sticky tape to help it stick to the skin.
Even after removal of the patch, the drugs keep penetrating into the patient's body. The skin patch has gone through rigorous testing on mice and human skin. Many researchers also feel this new vaccination technique could be beneficial for people suffering from melanoma- a form of acute skin cancer that is caused by exposure to ultra-violet rays.?
Researchers working on this have used chicken ovalbumin as a model antigen. They vaccinated mice with these patches and compared the outcome with intramuscular and subcutaneous injections.?
The micro-needle treatment was able to produce nine times the antibody levels compared to intramuscular injections and 160 times the antibody level compared to subcutaneous injections. They also witnessed impressive immune activation in surgical samples of human skin.
Representative Image: Reuters
According to Paula T. Hammond from MIT, "Our patch technology could be used to deliver vaccines to combat different infectious diseases. But we are excited by the possibility that the patch is another tool in the oncologists' arsenal against fighting cancer,specifically melanoma.?
The findings of this research will be presented at the American Chemical Society between August 25-29 in San Diego, California.?