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Washington: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers have found a
way of harnessing ultrasound waves for non-invasive drug delivery
or needle-free vaccinations.
Ultrasound - sound waves with frequencies greater than the upper
limit of human hearing - can increase skin permeability by lightly
wearing away the top layer of the skin, an effect that is
transient and pain-free.
"This could be used for topical drugs such as steroids - cortisol,
for example - systemic drugs and proteins such as insulin, as well
as antigens for vaccination, among many others," says Carl
Schoellhammer, MIT graduate student in chemical engineering and
co-author of the study, the Journal of Controlled Release reports.
Researchers found that applying two separate beams of ultrasound
waves - one each of low and high frequency - can uniformly boost
permeability across a region of skin more rapidly than using a
single beam of ultrasound waves, according to an MIT statement.
"It's a very innovative way to improve the technology, increasing
the amount of drug that can be delivered through the skin and
expanding the types of drugs that could be delivered this way,"
says Samir Mitragotri, professor of chemical engineering at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, who was not part of the
research team.
Daniel Blankschtein, Robert Langer and Douglas Hart, professors at
MIT and Baris Polat, former doctoral student in the Blankschtein
and Langer groups, co-authored the study.
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