The Homely Scientist

Raise your hand if you like to get injections.  Okay, you go get some help.  Doesn’t matter why you need to have an injection, it hurts.  Transdermal injection systems are being worked on all over the place, but here’s an interesting one:

NanoPass Technologies is working to develop its “proprietary intradermal drug delivery technology,” which supposedly deliver injections without the painful side effects by actually not reaching the nerve endings of the skin. Based on MicroPyramids, which are manufactured by MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems), the pure silicone crystals are used in extremely diminutive microneedles for intradermal injections, and the tip of the device measures less than one-micrometer in diameter.
Source: NanoPass needles set to vaccinate sans pain - Engadget

Many transdermal systems rely on using air pressure to push the substance into the body.  This means that the substance has to be a dry power and manufactured to be extremely fine.  NanoPass takes a different approach.  They’ve stuck (pun intended), with the needle idea, but the needles are so small and fine that they don’t even reach your nerve endings.  If you don’t hit a nerve, you can’t cause pain.

This leap in injection technology looks really promising.  While I’m not looking forward to getting a shot, this might make the process painless and easy.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Jedi Knights of Science, Science news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.