Micro-Needle, Thinner Than A Human Hair To Deliver Drug Painlessly Developed At IIT Kharagpur

Kharagpur: For those of us who squirm at the sight of an injection needle, here is good news. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur have developed a micro-needle, thinner than a human hair, and a micro-pump for injecting drugs to patients in a painless way, reported Hindustan Times (HT)

While a human hair is around 50-70 micrometre thick, the micro-needle is 55 micrometres thick.

The micro-pump and the micro-needle have been developed to feed into the transdermal drug delivery systems by researchers of electronics and electrical communication engineering

Transdermal drug delivery systems deliver biologically active agents through the skin in a painless process. They have been in use for decades in the USA and several other countries, HT reported.

How does it work?

The micro-needle operates with the help of a pressurised and controlled micro-pump. The micro-pump pushes out the drug in the reservoir through the micro-needle array. The micro-needle is painless as it is too small to touch the nerves in the skin and induce painful reactions, the report added.

“We have fabricated high-strength glassy carbon micro-needles which can withstand the skin resistive forces. The micro-pump helps to increase the flow rate of the drug molecules in a controlled and precise manner. We have further integrated this micro-needle and micro-pump to achieve controlled drug delivery,” HT reported Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya, a professor with the electronics and electrical communication engineering department which developed the needle and the pump as saying