Microneedles: Part I

I would like to raise this upcoming drug technology through my blog posting. I had come across a newspaper article about recent advances in this technology and would be posting about it in two blog sequences.

Introduction
The common needle phobia and painful injections could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a revolutionary new drug-delivery technique developed by a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology, US. Till now, all the parenteral delivery of drugs were done with those large sized needles and syringes.

But now, they would be soon replaced by tiny needles whose size range in micrometres, and using them in patients would also not require specialized skill to injection like the syringes and normal needles used to need.
The very few non-invasive methods of drug delivery, such as the transdermal patch, best known in its role as the smokers' nicotine patch, are unsuitable for most drugs as only very small molecules with high partition coeffient for lipophilicity can be transported across intact skin, which excludes the large biotherapeutic molecules found in many medicines.

However, these microneedles have a combination of non-invasiveness of transdermal patches and quickness of delivery like that of intravenous injections and this is surely bound to create a revolution in the field of drug delivery systems.

Methodology of Drug Delivery

The drug, in the form of biomolecules, is encapsulated within the microneedles, which are then inserted into the skin in the same way a drug like nitroglycerine is released into the bloodstream from a patch.

The needles dissolve within minutes, releasing the trapped cargo at the intended delivery site. They do not need to be removed and no dangerous or biohazardous substance is left behind on the skin, as the needles are made of a biodegradable substance.

A strong material can be chosen as the material of choice for fabrication of needle of those microneedles. Currently, Polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) has been thought of to fabricate the microneedles because it is robust enough to pierce the skin, dissolves quickly, and is harmless to the body.

Few beautiful pictures (taken from internet) and links of the microneedles have been given below for reference:

1)

2)

Links-

1) http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/NEEDLES.html

2) http://d140213.u136.secured.co.il/content-d.asp?cid=20