Nanotechnology: Can these skin patches vaccinate the world instead of needles?

Who likes needles? I know I don't.

According to Mark Kendall, approximately 20% of the American population suffer from trypanophobia, the fear of needles, which makes vaccinating difficult for doctors. What's worse WHO has figures that suggest about 1.3 million deaths per year take place due to cross-contamination with needlestick injuries.

So, how can we reduce prevent negative responses from trypanophobia and vaccinate people at the same time? Well, Mark's astonishing work is here to save the day. He and his team is developing a nanopatch for a safer and easier vaccine delivery to move from the 160-year old needle and syringe technology.

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine is defined as a substance containing small molecules of a certain pathogen and is used to trigger the production of antibodies and provide immunity against that pathogen to prevent future infections caused by it.

Imagine a thief (the vaccine) breaking into your home (your body) and you (the immune system) happened to notice him at the time he left. So, to prevent other thieves from stealing your precious belongings or harming your family, logically, you would want to set up precautions such as installing security cameras and placing your belongings in a safe.

Shortcomings of the needle and syringe technology

Besides its lack of ability to counter trypanophobia, it decreases the immune responses of the next generation of vaccines and has to deal with the cold chain. The cold chain is the process of keeping vaccine in liquid form constantly refrigerated from production all the way through when the vaccine is applied. If the vaccine is too warm or too cold, the vaccine breaks down.

According to WHO, up to half the vaccines used in Africa are considered to not be working properly because at some point the cold chain was affected.

What is a nanopatch?

Imagine a postage stamp that is so small that it could be held at the tip of your finger and has thousands of tiny spikes on its surface: that's a nanopatch. The nanopatch that Mark developed has about 4000 tiny projection that are invisible to the human eye. It is created through deep reactive ion etching which is a plasma process where excited ions in an electric field are used to etch away the surface of a material (Franssila et al). This process is low cost and increases the scale of production.

How to use a nanopatch?

The spiky projections on nanopatches are dry-coated with vaccines and applied to the skin just like a skin patch. However, since fingers have some limitations, Mark decided to create an application that helps do the same with more ease.

The nanopatch then breach through the tough outer layer of dead skins cells and penetrate through the brown area, as shown in the image below, where a lot of immune cells reside. This allows the vaccine to easily trigger an immune response. After injecting the vaccine, the nanopatch is discarded and the applicator can be reused.

Advantages of the nanopatch

Of course, it prevents any negative response from people with needle phobia, but, most importantly, it strengthens the immune responses from the body since it literally penetrates through the brown layer. This also allows more immune cells to act on the vaccine, resulting in a faster immunity production. Last but not least, it gets rid of the cold chain due it being dry coated it doesn't need to be refrigerated. Phew, all that trouble gone!

Disadvantages of the nanopatch

I'm not sure if there is any. Unless the nanopatch is made of plastic which can affect the environment when it is disposed off, I don't see any major disadvantages or maybe it's just because there wasn't enough information given? If you think there are any disadvantages, feel free to comment below or chat with us! We would love to hear your opinions!😆

I've attached the source below if you wish to learn more in detail!👇

Sorry for the long post, here's a potato.

Have fun learning!💕

References:

Franssila, Sami, and Lauri Sainiemi. “Reactive Ion Etching (RIE).” SpringerLink, Springer, Boston, MA, 1 Jan. 1970, link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-0-387-48998-8_1344