IIT Kharagpur’s Painless Microneedle Could Be Used For COVID-19 Vaccine

There are people who don’t like to be injected. With that in mind, IIT Kharagpur researchers have come up with an invention to minimize the pain caused by needles.

They have invented a microneedle that can administer large drug molecules without causing pain. The needle is developed at IIT Kharagpur’s Department of Electronic and Electrical Communication Engineering. The researchers not only make the needle thinner but also improve its overall strength so that it won’t break.

Diabetic patients often use microneedles to inject insulin into the body. But according to researchers, this microneedle could also be used for COVID-19 vaccines when they are available.

Prof. Tarun Kanti Bhattacharya says that researchers have created glass carbon microneedles that can handle the skin resistive forces. The microneedle is integrated with a micropump that increases the drug molecules’ flow rate in a precise and controlled manner.

The microneedle can be used for different kinds of transdermal medication. With more research, the researchers would be able to come up with effective delivery systems that offer a pain-free and comfortable experience.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Department of Science and Technology of India are the ones behind the funding of microneedle’s development. The needles have already been tested on animals following all medical protocols. The researchers have filed a patent for the microneedle as well as publishing the research in Nature and IEEE journals.

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