Scientists invent new needleless injectors to stop hurting

High speed: This device can be used to inject various doses of medicine into different depths of skin in accordance with procedures developed in advance.

Business Club May 31 hearing Beijing time on May 30 news, scientists have developed a new method of injection of drugs without needles, a high-speed high-pressure jet can be used to inject drugs into the body through the skin. This method may one day end the era when today's injections will hurt.

Scientists unveiled the needleless syringe on May 26th. It is similar to the injection device in the movie “Star Trek” and can be used to inject various doses of medicine into different depths of skin in accordance with procedures developed in advance. For patients suffering from "needle phobia", this innovative syringe will not cause pain to the patient and may be very popular in the future. Frequently, these patients do not even fight the vaccine because of fear of the needle.

In the highly successful science fiction film series "Star Trek", space shuttle medical officer Leonard McCoy used a needleless injection device to treat the wounded. Researchers say they have developed a similar device that can create a high-speed jet that penetrates the skin. It is said that scientists have been studying new types of jet injectors for some time, and this device is just a representative version of it.

The researchers said that this technology has many benefits, such as drastically reducing the accidental accidents that doctors and nurses inadvertently use when they use needle syringes. In addition, some patients try to avoid the discomfort caused by regular injections of insulin and other drugs, and a needle-free injection device helps to improve this situation, so that these patients are willing to accept the injection of drugs. Catherine Hogan, a member of the MIT research group, said: “If you are afraid of a needle and you have to self-inject yourself, then compliance is a problem. We believe that this needle-free injection technique can make needle phobia patients Get a complete release."

Over the past few decades, scientists have developed alternatives to various hypodermic syringes. For example, nicotine patch, it can slowly penetrate the drug into the skin. However, they can only release drug molecules small enough to pass through the pores of the skin, which limits the use of drugs. But the MIT research team led by Ian Hunter has developed a jet injection system that injects various doses of drugs to different depths of skin in a strictly controlled manner. This design is based on a mechanism called the Lorentz Force Actuator. This device is small, but powerful, with a metal coil wrapped around it and connected to a piston inside the ampoule that holds the drug. When energized, the current in the needle-less injector interacts with the magnetic field of the magnet, generating a powerful boost force that pushes the piston forward, ejecting the drug through the ampule nozzle at high pressure and high speed (nearly near the speed of sound in the air). The nozzle is as wide as the tip of a mosquito.

The researchers found in the experiment that different skin types require various pressures to inject a sufficient dose of the drug to the required depth. Hogan said: “When you give a child a vaccine, it doesn’t need much pressure, but if it’s my skin, it’s different. We can determine the pressure needed for a needleless syringe if we need to. This is the new device’s The charm lies." The journal Medical Engineering and Physics reported the major results of this new study.