Nguyen Lab Explores Benefits of Using Microneedle Arrays for … – University of Connecticut

In rural areas, especially in developing countries, the long distance to a medical facility may hinder a population from getting vaccinations, and especially booster doses.

Vaccinesfor everything from influenza to COVID-19 to pneumococcal diseasesare stored at a low temperature forstability andare typically administrated through ahypodermicneedle and syringe from a health care professional.

What if we were able to mail people vaccines that dont need refrigeration and they could apply them totheir own skinlike a bandage? asked Thanh Nguyen, associate professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineeringat the University of Connecticut.And what if we could easily vaccinate peopleoncewhere theywouldntneed a booster? We couldpotentiallyeradicate polio, measles, rubella, and COVID-19.

The answer, Nguyen believes, is administrating vaccines through aprogrammablemicroneedle array patch with anovelprocess he isdeveloping athis lab at UConn.

By adhering anearly painless, 1-centimeter-squarebiodegradablepatch to the skin, a person can receive apreprogrammed deliveryof highly-concentrated vaccines in powder formover monthsandeliminatethe need for boosters.The primary argument is that getting vaccines and boosters is a pain, Nguyen said. Youhave togo back two or three times to get these shots. With the microneedle platform, you put it on once, anditsdone. You have yourvaccineand you have your boosters. Youdonthave to go back to the doctor or hospital.

This month, UConns Institute of Materials Science received athree-yeargrant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support Nguyens research on Single-Administration Self-boosting Microneedle Platform for Vaccines and Therapeutics. The projectsgoalis to develop a low-cost manufacturing process.

TheNguyen Research Grouphas already been working to thermally-stabilize vaccines and other therapeutics so they can stay inside the skin fora long period. In 2020,Nature Biomedical Engineeringpublished a studyby Nguyen and his colleaguesreporting that, in rats, microneedles loaded with a clinically available vaccine (Prevnar-13) against a bacteriumprovidedsimilar immune protectionasmultiple bolus injections.

Weve been able to show this technology is safe and effective in the small animal model, but now the question is, how do we translate it into the commercialized stage and make it useful to the end user, which is the human, he said.

With support from the Gates Foundation, Nguyenwill be able to test his microneedle platform on a larger animala pig, which has skinsimilar tohumans. And if the results are similar, Nguyenpredictsthis technology could be manufactured, at an affordable cost, enabling both domestic and global health impact.

Nguyensmicroneedle platform also caught the attention of the United States Department of Agriculture. In September, the USDA: Research, Education, and Economics division awarded Nguyen with a two-year grant for a study titled Delivery of FMDV Protein Antigens Using a Programmable Transdermal Microneedle System.

The Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus(FMDV) is a highly contagious disease that affects the health of livestock such as cows, pigs, sheep, and goats.When an outbreak occurs, the disease leaves affected animals weakened and unable to produce meat and milk. FMDV causes production losses and hardships for farmers and ranchers, and has serious impacts on livestock trade.

And while vaccines exist, like with humans, boosters are required tokeep the vaccine effective.

USDA is interested in the technology because the patch will be able to deliver the initial dose and subsequent doses, or boosters, to animals without the need for rounding up and handling multiple animals at once, Nguyen explained. This decreases stress on the animals and increases safety for the animals and their handlers.

The microneedle platform is among the latest applications the Nguyen Research Group is exploring in the arena of vaccine/drug delivery, tissue regenerative engineering, smart piezoelectric materials, electronic implants, and bioelectronics. Since joining the College of Engineering in 2016, Nguyen has discovered a method of sending electric pulses through a biodegradable polymer to assist with cartilage regeneration; hes designed a powerful biodegradable ultrasound device that could make brain cancers more treatable; and he used microneedle patches to deliver antibody therapies, which have been proven successful in treating HIV, autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, and certain types of cancer.

Christina Tamburro, post-award grants and contracts specialist for UConns Institute of Materials Science said IMS is grateful to both the Gates Foundation and USDA for supporting Professor Nguyens drug delivery research.

This is a wonderful application of material science and this is what were all about. Ultimately, this is going to save lives and it cant get better than that, she said.

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Nguyen Lab Explores Benefits of Using Microneedle Arrays for ... - University of Connecticut