Farewell to needles....

[BaalChatzaf]

A needle-less method of injection using a Lorentz-Force magnetic injector has been developed

please see: www.dailydisruption.com/2012/05/mit-scientists-develop-a-needle-less-device-for-injections-video

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

    A device that injects drugs painlessly at speed of sound


PTI May 28, 2012, 05.24AM IST





WASHINGTON: Getting an injection could soon be a painless experience, as MIT scientist have devised a new device which they say shoots drugs through the skin at nearly the speed of sound without using needles. The high-speed jet injector device, developed by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, uses a small, powerful magnet and electric current to inject medicine at nearly the speed of sound.

Changes in the electric current allow the injector to work in two phases - a high-speed phase to enter the skin and reach a certain depth, and a lower-pressure phase to deliver the drug in a slow stream that allows for absorption , said Catherine Hogan , a member of the team. "If you are afraid of needles and have to frequently self-inject , compliance can be an issue," Hogan was quoted as saying by Live-science. "We think this kind of technology ... gets around some of the phobias that people may have about needles," he added.

MIT Scientists Develop a Needle-Less Device for Injections Daily Disruption May 25, 2012 26MIT Scientists Develop a Needle-Less Device for Injections By Jennifer Chu | MITGetting a shot at the doctor’s office may become less painful in the not-too-distant future.MIT researchers have engineered a device that delivers a tiny, high-pressure jet of medicine through the skin without the use of a hypodermic needle. The device can be programmed to deliver a range of doses to various depths — an improvement over similar jet-injection systems that are now commercially available.The researchers say that among other benefits, the technology may help reduce the potential for needle-stick injuries; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that hospital-based health care workers accidentally prick themselves with needles 385,000 times each year. A needleless device may also help improve compliance among patients who might otherwise avoid the discomfort of regularly injecting themselves with drugs such as insulin.“If you are afraid of needles and have to frequently self-inject, compliance can be an issue,” says Catherine Hogan, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and a member of the research team. “We think this kind of technology … gets around some of the phobias that people may have about needles.”The team reports on the development of this technology in the journal Medical Engineering & Physics.Pushing past the needleIn the past few decades, scientists have developed various alternatives to hypodermic needles. For example, nicotine patches slowly release drugs through the skin. But these patches can only release drug molecules small enough to pass through the skin’s pores, limiting the type of medicine that can be delivered.With the delivery of larger protein-based drugs on the rise, researchers have been developing new technologies capable of delivering them — including jet injectors, which produce a high-velocity jet of drugs that penetrate the skin. While there are several jet-based devices on the market today, Hogan notes that there are drawbacks to these commercially available devices. The mechanisms they use, particularly in spring-loaded designs, are essentially “bang or nothing,” releasing a coil that ejects the same amount of drug to the same depth every time.Breaching the skinNow the MIT team, led by Ian Hunter, the George N. Hatsopoulos Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has engineered a jet-injection system that delivers a range of doses to variable depths in a highly controlled manner. The design is built around a mechanism called a Lorentz-force actuator — a small, powerful magnet surrounded by a coil of wire that’s attached to a piston inside a drug ampoule. When current is applied, it interacts with the magnetic field to produce a force that pushes the piston forward, ejecting the drug at very high pressure and velocity (almost the speed of sound in air) out through the ampoule’s nozzle — an opening as wide as a mosquito’s proboscis.Needleless injection systemMIT-engineered device injects drug without needles, delivering a high-velocity jet of liquid that breaches the skin at the speed of sound. Image courtesy of the MIT BioInstrumentation LabThe speed of the coil and the velocity imparted to the drug can be controlled by the amount of current applied; the MIT team generated pressure profiles that modulate the current. The resulting waveforms generally consist of two distinct phases: an initial high-pressure phase in which the device ejects drug at a high-enough velocity to “breach” the skin and reach the desired depth, then a lower-pressure phase where drug is delivered in a slower stream that can easily be absorbed by the surrounding tissue.Through testing, the group found that various skin types may require different waveforms to deliver adequate volumes of drugs to the desired depth.“If I’m breaching a baby’s skin to deliver vaccine, I won’t need as much pressure as I would need to breach my skin,” Hogan says. “We can tailor the pressure profile to be able to do that, and that’s the beauty of this device.”Samir Mitragotri, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is developing new ways to deliver drugs, including via jet injection. Mitragotri, who was not involved with the research, sees the group’s technology as a promising step beyond jet injection designs currently on the market.“Commercially available jet injectors … provide limited control, which limits their applications to certain drugs or patient populations,” Mitragotri says. “[This] design provides excellent control over jet parameters, including speed and doses … this will enhance the applicability of needleless drug devices.”The team is also developing a version of the device for transdermal delivery of drugs ordinarily found in powdered form by programming the device to vibrate, turning powder into a “fluidized” form that can be delivered through the skin much like a liquid. Hunter says that such a powder-delivery vehicle may help solve what’s known as the “cold-chain” problem: Vaccines delivered to developing countries need to be refrigerated if they are in liquid form. Often, coolers break down, spoiling whole batches of vaccines. Instead, Hunter says a vaccine that can be administered in powder form requires no cooling, avoiding the cold-chain problem.

[Mikee]

Not exactly farewell for drawing blood...

The Navy was shooting us up assembly line fashion 40+ years ago with no needles. Some kind of compressed air delivery system.

[BaalChatzaf]

Not exactly farewell for drawing blood...

The Navy was shooting us up assembly line fashion 40+ years ago with no needles. Some kind of compressed air delivery system.

True. Us chronic blood donors will have to put up with getting stuck until they learn how to teleport blood through the skind.

I do about ten donations of platelets a year. I am so used to getting stuck that needles have long since ceased to bother me. The only needles that give me the willies are those 4 inch jobber used for spinal taps.

Ba'al; Chatzaf

[Bryce]

I used to donate platelets. I was awarded the "Four Gallon" pin before I quit going (right around the time I found Ayn Rand...). I suddenly remember that some technicians were worse than others at finding my veins and the punishment that came during a return when the needle wasn't put in properly. And that's aside from inadvertently flexing or moving my elbow with the needle in there. I wish they could've done it somewhere other than right at the joint.

[syrakusos]

Not exactly farewell for drawing blood...

The Navy was shooting us up assembly line fashion 40+ years ago with no needles. Some kind of compressed air delivery system.

Yes, about 45 years ago, at a high school science seminar, we heard from a doctor who was taking an "air gun'" to Africa for mass injections.

But old technology is stable. Speaking of "stables" we refer to the horse-and-buggy era disparagingly but now that they are mostly gone, horses are for the wealthy and you can make a good living caring for them. Similarly, I read that the world has some huge factor more sailboats now than in 1800. Needles will be around for a while, sad to say.

(Last few times I had blood tests, the needles were very small and sharp. I hardly noticed.)

[Mikee]

Giving blood is good for you. A very good strength trainer I follow, Dan John, also recommends it. I presently can't give blood because I'm on a blood thinner, warfarin (aka: "rat poison"). In a few months I'll be off of it and I'll go back to donating blood.

[Selene]

Giving blood is good for you. A very good strength trainer I follow, Dan John, also recommends it. I presently can't give blood because I'm on a blood thinner, warfarin (aka: "rat poison"). In a few months I'll be off of it and I'll go back to donating blood.

Can't you donate exclusively to Democratic Senatorial candidates in the interim?

[Mikee]

LOL!! Good one.

Giving blood is good for you. A very good strength trainer I follow, Dan John, also recommends it. I presently can't give blood because I'm on a blood thinner, warfarin (aka: "rat poison"). In a few months I'll be off of it and I'll go back to donating blood.

Can't you donate exclusively to Democratic Senatorial candidates in the interim?

LOL!! Good one Adam.