No more needles for vaccines – a two minute Nanopatch may suffice, say researchers

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDApr 22 2010

Vaccines have been associated with painful injections for a very long time. In a new and important discovery researchers have developed special ‘nano patches’ that can deliver vaccines without needles in just two minutes using 100 times less dose than used conventionally.

This research was carried out by the scientists at the University of Queensland (UQ) and was led by Professor Mark Kendall, from UQs Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.

The research was supported by UQ's Diamantina Institute for Cancer, Immunology and Metabolic Medicine and Faculty of Health Sciences, as well as the University of Melbourne. It was aided by the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, and the Queensland Government's Smart State Scheme.

Professor Kendall said in a statement, “We believe it has the potential to - if not replace - the needle and syringe - certainly displace it… Of course most people just don't like the needle - 10 per cent of the population have needle phobia… Our technique is needle free so it should appeal to many people.” He added that this method of administration took just two minutes and the patch itself is smaller than a postage stamp with several thousands of proteins that are invisible to unaided eyes. “The Nanopatch targeted specific antigen-presenting cells found in a narrow layer just beneath the skin surface and as a result we used less than one hundredth of the dose used by a needle while stimulating a comparable immune response… Our result is ten times better than the best results achieved by other delivery methods and does not require the use of other immune stimulants, called adjuvants, or multiple vaccinations…With a 100th of the dose of the needle, we have achieved equivalent or better performance… We have some subsequent work that is unpublished that has even shorter times than that,” he said. Administration and storage are also much easier according to him. “Because the Nanopatch requires neither a trained practitioner to administer it nor refrigeration, it has enormous potential cheaply deliver vaccines in developing nations,” he said.

In the study the researchers administered dry influenza vaccine on the skin of mice for two minutes and found good results. According to Dr Kendall, “When compared to a needle and syringe a nanopatch is cheap to produce and it is easy to imagine a situation in which a government might provide vaccinations for a pandemic such as swine flu to be collected from a chemist or sent in the mail…. This is an exciting discovery and our next step is to prove the effectiveness of nanopatches in human clinical trials”