Revolutionizing Vaccines: Soluble Microneedles and the Future of Painless Transdermal Delivery

Trypanophobia, an intense fear of needles in a medical setting, affects 33% to 66% of children and up to 10% of the total population, hundreds of millions of people. Additionally, many side effects result from traditional needle injections, such as a high risk of infection and contamination. Finding an alternative to traditional hypodermic vaccine delivery is vital for patients worldwide. Microneedles are small arrays of needles that penetrate a small area with restricted depth. They cause minor inflammation and damage to the dermal layers compared to traditional needles and were engineered to penetrate the epidermis to convey a drug directly into the subepidermal vesicular without reaching nerve endings and blood vessels which cause the pain associated with needles. This study aimed to develop water-soluble microneedles from hyaluronic acid that include both proteins OVA and BSA. The microneedle we developed demonstrated significant protein delivery in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and is expected to be a new method of vaccine delivery in the future.