Scared of needles? The solution could be compressed air syringes – breaking latest news

In short, who hasn’t suffered from belonephobia at least once in their life? Fear of needles and pins, also known as aichmophobia, a fairly common disorder (about 10% of the population suffers from it) and manifests itself with a completely unreasonable fear of any sharp or pointed object, which can cause bleeding wounds. And at least since the 1940s that science has been searching – unsuccessfully – for a valid alternative to at least the syringe needle. Now scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas are trying it through a compressed air delivery approach.

The starting point: jet injectors from the 60s

The results of their work during the spring meeting of theAmerican Chemical Society (ACS). The team, led by Jeremiah Gassensmith HeyAlini Wijesundarahas developed MOF-Jet, an innovative system for administering powder vaccines through gas compression. This method, the authors argue, it does not require the refrigeration of the drugs and it does not require the inoculation of the substances through syringes. MOF-Jet — Gassensmith says — could easily deliver therapies for cancer and other diseases relatively painlessly.

The research group was inspired by the jet injectors dating back to the 1960s, which used compressed gas to transmit a restricted flow of fluids. Jet injectors were formerly widely used in the military, but they were painful and the fluid often splashed backpotentially spreading other diseases such as hepatitis B. A modern descendant the gene gun, which is typically used in veterinary medicine and can cost tens of thousands of dollarsthe. These devices also fire bioburden into cells. In this case, the load attached to the surface of a metallic microparticle, typically of gold or tungsten. But once the metal particles have penetrated the skin, they remain there and can accelerate the degradation of biological material.

Change the means of transport: metal-organic structures

The technology has been adapted for transporting solids through metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs. These porous, crystalline supports act as molecular cages to encapsulate a wide variety of materials, including nucleic acids and proteins. Our approach – observes Wijesundara – allows to store vaccine formulations in powder form, which therefore do not require the maintenance of cold chains and extreme temperatures. The projectiles of the device s
owere injected into onion cells and into a mouse model.

Different release times

Experts also point out that the load release can be adjusted simply by varying the injector carrier gas. Carbon dioxide tends to release the load faster inside the cells – the scholars report – while the air takes four or five days to complete the delivery. The applications of this method are really interesting, ranging from veterinary medicine to agriculture to the administration of vaccines and therapies to human patients. Researchers are considering eg the possibility of providing chemotherapy and adjuvants as a potential treatment for melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer. By controlling the carrier gas, therapies could speed up and slow down drug delivery. Although these results are only preliminary – concludes Wijesundara – the preliminary experiments are very promising.