Nanopatch more effective than needles Thursday, 22 April 2010...

Nanopatch more effective than needles
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Researchers in Queensland have shown that a vaccine delivered by a Nanopatch induces a protective immune response like a vaccine made by needle and syringe, but uses 100 times less of the vaccine.
Professor Mark Kendall, University of Queensland's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology said Nanopatch targeted specific antigen presenting cells found in a thin layer just below the skin surface and, consequently, the researchers used less than a hundredth of the dose used by a needle while stimulating immune responses comparable.

"Our result is 10 times better than the best results obtained by other methods of delivery and does not require the use of other stimulants of the immune system, called adjuvants, or multiple vaccinations," he said.

"Why Nanopatch requires neither a trained professional to administer or cold, has enormous potential to provide vaccines at low cost in developing countries".

The Nanopatch is much smaller than a postage stamp and has several thousand projections densely human eye.

The influenza vaccine has been coated dry on these projections and applied to the skin of mice for two minutes.

Professor Kendall said with much less vaccine: the Nanopatch allow the vaccination of more people.

"When compared to a needle and syringe, a Nanopatch is cheap to produce, and is easy to imagine a situation where a government can provide vaccinations to a swine flu pandemic as a chemical to be collected or posted" he said.

Professor Kendall and his team now plans to demonstrate the effectiveness of Nanopatches in clinical trials.

Ansa News - Top News

Australia: the street-patch vaccine
Used one-hundredth of an injection dose, better results

(ANSA) - SYDNEY, April 22 - A patch with nanoparticles carrying out the vaccinations in a more 'efficient, avoiding the use of needles and syringes. It 'has been developed by a team of Australian scientists led by Mark Kendle Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology University' of Queensland. The 'nanocerotto' takes two minutes to be administered. 'With one-hundredth of the dose of vaccine injection, we obtained a yield equivalent and better,' says Kendle.

April 22 11:57

Sam