A brand-new episode of our podcast series Here’s an Idea looks at microneedles, specifically their use in delivering drugs and vaccines. The array of tiny injectors, less than a millimeter in height, avoid nerve endings and feel a bit like Velcro. The patch creates little, micron size pathways that lead a drug directly to the epidermis layer of the skin, and from there a drug can directly go into the circulation system.  Once you remove the patch, the holes in the skin close over.

“What this means is that you've got a very safe technology and that the skin essentially re-seals after the micro needles have been removed,” Ryan Donnelly, a microneedle researcher at the Queens University Belfast, said in our episode.

Listen to Here’s an Idea: Microneedles.

What do you think? Will Microneedles Catch On?

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