Painless drug delivery via melting ice microneedle patches
- The icy microneedles can deliver drugs and living mammalian cells into the skin
- The technology paves the way for developing an easy-to-use cell therapy
[Sponsored Article]
A research team led by biomedical engineers at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a new generation of microneedle patches made of ice that melt after the pain-free delivery of drugs.
Experiments using this groundbreaking invention on mice with cancers have shown that the animals’ immune responses were much better than those seen in conventional vaccination methods. The technology paves the way for developing an easy-to-use cell therapy and other therapeutics against cancers and other diseases.
Made from a cryogenic solution, these icy microneedles are less than 1mm long and can deliver living mammalian cells into the skin. The device is like a skin patch and the microneedles can detach from the patch base, melt and then penetrate the skin.
The research is led by Dr Xu Chenjie, Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), and the findings were published in Nature Biomedical Engineering under the title “Cryomicroneedles for Transdermal Cell Delivery”.
