Microneedle-based drug and vaccine delivery via nanoporous microneedle arrays.

The skin is an attractive organ for drug and vaccine delivery because it is easily accessible and has a large surface area that is available for drug administration, and dermal drug delivery is potentially pain-free . Furthermore, drug delivery via the skin circumvents the first-pass effect of the liver, swallowing problems, inconvenient injections, and drug absorption/stability problems in the gastrointestinal tract . Besides, the skin contains a large number of antigen-presenting cells (i.e., Langerhans cells and dermal dendritic cells) and is therefore a suitable site for vaccination . However, for transdermal delivery, only about 20 active drug molecules are on the market, all of them being low-molecular-weight drugs, illustrating that it is difficult to overcome the skin barrier . This barrier, i.e., the stratum corneum, complicates foreign compounds, including drugs, from entering the body. To overcome the stratum corneum barrier, several drug delivery systems have been developed.

One of the most promising delivery systems are Microneedles, which are needle-like structures with a length of less than 1 mm that are used to deliver drugs into the skin in a minimally-invasive and potentially pain free manner.

However, porous microneedle arrays only received minimal attention. Hence, only little is known about drug delivery via these microneedles. However, porous microneedle arrays may have potential for future microneedle-based drug and vaccine delivery and could be a valuable addition to the other microneedle-based drug delivery approaches.

This subject was very interesting for me to learn, since I had to do an investigation in a university subject, "research for the pharmaceutical sciences", where micro-needle technology was used at micrometric level, with ample advantages unlike vaccination Conventional, which causes pain, especially in children, causes infections and requires a trained professional. This technology has a promising future in the pharmaceutical industry as it does not cause pain, it can be eventually self-administered and can generate a saving of pharmaceutical doses, it can also achieve very good immunological responses, can be less expensive for people...