Research Projects

India faces a shortage of 600,000 doctors and 2 million nurses, leading to a manpower scarcity for administering lifesaving drugs and vaccines through skin. The most common way of skin route delivery is hypodermic syringes with long needles, which cause pain, trauma, and discomfort to patients. Research on microneedles in India is limited and in the preliminary stage, with manufacturing ready microneedles far from fetched. The main reasons for the success of microneedles as a commercial product in India and globally are cleanroom requirements, low fabrication throughput, compatibility with existing assembly lines, and high costs. This work proposes developing hollow microneedle array-based adaptors with novel miniaturized assembly techniques. These adaptors will be designed and optimized for effective insertion in the skin using contemporary simulation software. They will be 500-900 µm high strength hollow microneedles on a compatible substrate with through holes for microfluidic communication between the drug reservoir and the microneedles. The adaptors will securely land the microneedles on the skin and aid in drug delivery. Their fabrication method allows for automation, contributing to their high yield. They can easily fit into existing syringe barrels and undergo sterilization procedures. They could also be customized for attachment in wearable patches. The project aims to develop a concept for a scalable TRL 4 transdermal drug delivery device component, similar in terms of patient comfort, technology, and features to hypodermic syringes.

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