About half a million deaths can be prevented if the time to vaccinate people against a particular disease. This is relevant primarily for developing countries. Meanwhile, there are many reasons that hinder vaccination in these regions of the world. For example, the lack of adequate infrastructure for storage of medical records.
Physicians in such countries it is difficult to determine to whom and when you need to put a specific vaccine. Meanwhile, to maximize the effectiveness of vaccination, must be carefully monitored, when and who instilled.
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT), proposed a solution to this problem: they developed a new way of storing the history of vaccination of each individual patient. For this, they propose to put the important information in the so-called quantum dots, which are nanocrystals and are invisible to the naked eye. They will be introduced directly under the skin of the patient along with the vaccine.
On the creation of a method of recording information about vaccinations, which would not require a centralized database or other infrastructure, a team of scientists from MIT have thought a few years ago.
to create a “personalized medical card” patients, scientists have developed a new type of quantum dots based on copper. They emit light in the near infrared range.
the diameter of the quantum dots themselves is about four nanometers, but they are Packed in biocompatible microparticles, which form spheres with a diameter of about 20 micrometers. This shell will allow content to remain under the skin after injection.
to Deliver them in the body is offered using the technology of the patch with microneedles, which the authors of the project “Conduct.Science” (nauka.vesti.ru) told you.
Microneedle with a length of five mm consists of a mixture of dissolved sugar and a polymer called PVA, as well as vaccines and quantum dots.
When the patch is applied to the skin, microneedle partially solutionorayta and release the contents for about two minutes.
“Tattoos” of quantum dots will help to record the history of vaccination of the patient directly under his skin.Illustration Of The Second Bay Studios.
According to the researchers, the microparticles can be loaded at all, but only in some microneedle. As a result, the plaster on the skin creates the specified pattern, invisible to the naked eye that can be seen with a smartphone that does not have an infrared filter.
the Researchers explain that in this way the plaster can form a variety of patterns that will match the type of vaccine.
Experts have experienced developing on the skin of dead people. Experiments have shown that smartphone cameras can capture embedded under the skin templates even after five years of simulation the effects of the sun.
That is, scientists have shown that quantum dots can remain under the skin for at least five years. And they can still be detected with a “smart” phone.
They also tested their approach on live rats. Patch with microneedles helped to introduce into the organism of animals of the quantum dot and the polio vaccine.
it turned Out that the rodents have developed an immune response as well as did rats that received the polio vaccine in the traditional way.
“the Study confirmed that “Association” of vaccines and quantum dots in the patch with microneedles does not affect the drug’s effectiveness and our ability to detect the dye,” notes co-author with Ana Aclinic (Ana Jaklenec).
In the future, scientists intend to work on including the patches with microneedles more specific data such as date and batch number of the vaccination. In addition, the experts have yet to conduct further studies to verify the safety of new items for people.
Scientific article on the results of the study published in Science Translational Medicine.
Text: To.Science