Wearable Patch can deliver drugs to the body painlessly the patch can be used to treat a variety of skin conditions. Using ultrasound waves that deliver drug molecules deep into the skin, the patch can be used to treat a variety of skin conditions.
The skin is an attractive route for drug delivery because it allows drugs to go directly to the site of need, which can be useful for treating wounds, pain, or other medical applications. and cosmetics. However, drug delivery through the skin is difficult because the skin’s thick layer prevents many small molecules from passing through.
In hopes of making it easier to transport drugs through the skin, MIT researchers have developed an opaque patch that applies ultrasound waves painlessly to the skin, creating tiny channels through which the drug can head over. The system could lend itself to providing treatments for various skin conditions and could be adapted to deliver hormones, health and other drugs, researchers said.
Canan Dagdeviren, associate professor at the MIT Media Lab and author says, “The ease of use and high quality of this system provide an alternative for patients and consumers who suffer from the skin and aging” of birth. “Giving medicine in this way can provide less lethal dose and is local, safe and controlled.”
MIT research assistants Chia-Chen Yu and Aastha Shah led the paper, which appeared in Advanced Materials, as part of the “Rising Stars” journal, which highlights the outstanding work of researchers in early of their own work. . Other MIT authors include research assistant Colin Marcus and postdoc Md Osman Goni Nayeem. Nikta Amiri, Amit Kumar Bhayadia and Amin Karami of the University at Buffalo are also authors of this report.
Sound wave enhancement
The researchers started this project as an investigation of other methods of drug delivery. Most drugs are delivered orally or intravenously, but the skin is one route that can provide targeted drug delivery for some applications.
“The main advantage with a cut is that you bypass the entire bowel. “With oral administration, you’re going to give more of the drug for the loss you’re going to have in the intestinal system,” Shah said. “It’s a targeted and targeted drug delivery system.”
Exposure to ultrasound has been shown to improve skin permeability to small molecule drugs, but most current methods for performing this type of drug delivery require critical equipment. The MIT team wanted to find a way to make this type of transdermal drug delivery with a small, lightweight barrier, which could make it easier to use for a variety of applications.
The device they designed consists of an embedded patch with several disk-shaped piezoelectric transducers that can convert electrical energy into mechanical energy. Each disc is placed in a polymer cavity containing drug molecules dissolved in an aqueous solution. When electricity is applied to the piezoelectric elements, they create pressure waves in the water, creating bubbles that explode against the skin. These bursting bubbles create a microjet of water that can penetrate into the tough skin, the stratum corneum.
“This paves the way to using vibration for better drug delivery. Many parameters allow the creation of different types of waveforms. The organ and biological processes of drug delivery can be improved with this new device,” said Karami.
The patch is made of PDMS, a silicone-based polymer that can stick to the skin without tape. In this study, researchers tested the device by providing a B vitamin called niacinamide, an ingredient found in many sunscreens and lotions.
In a pig skin test, the researchers showed that when they administered niacinamide using an ultrasound patch, the amount of drug that penetrated the skin was 26 times greater than what could have gone through the skin without it, ultrasonic help.
The researchers also compared the results of their new device to microneedling, a technique commonly used for transdermal drug delivery, which involves piercing the skin with tiny needles. The researchers found that their patch can deliver the same amount of niacinamide in 30 minutes as can be delivered with microneedles in six hours.
Local delivery
With the current type of device, drugs can penetrate a few millimeters into the skin, making this method useful for drugs that act locally on the skin. These may include niacinamide or vitamin C, which are used to treat age spots or other dark spots on the skin, or medications used to treat burns.
With other changes to make it deeper, this method can also be used for drugs that need to reach the bloodstream, such as caffeine, fentanyl, or lidocaine. Dagdeviren also hopes that this type of patch could be useful for delivering hormones like progesterone. Furthermore, researchers are currently investigating the possibility of implanting similar devices in the body to deliver drugs to treat cancer or other diseases.
Researchers are also working on developing a wearable barrier, hoping to test it on human volunteers soon. They plan to repeat the lab experiments they did in this study, with larger drug molecules.
“After defining the drug delivery profile for large doses, we will find candidates, such as hormones or insulin, that can be delivered using this technology, to provide a painless alternative to these people need now to give themselves daily injections. basis,” said Shah.
Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
