After a six-year quest, a Japanese scientist at Kyoto Pharmaceutical University has unveiled a small chip designed to deliver vaccines without breaking the skin--or causing any pain.
Kanji Takada tells the Telegraph that the chip incorporates 300 tiny "needles" that administer a vaccine just below the surface of the skin without penetrating it. "The patch can be used to deliver any type of vaccine and people are not frightened of having the injection because they feel nothing at all," explains Professor Takada.
Takada says he was challenged to succeed where others had failed using microneedles made of sugar. The professor opted for a water-soluble polymer that dissolved once it had been pushed into the epidermis, the skin's outer layer. And he says it should be available in Japan in two years.
- here's the story from the Telegraph