Photo: Skedonk
Prediction: By 2015, vaccines will become available “off the shelf” (image, “now available without a prescription”), thanks to needle-free delivery. — MB
Some Americans will receive dozens of vaccines in their lifetimes.
That’s a lot of shots, and boosters, for doctors and patients to keep track of.
Adding to the confusion, University of Michigan scientists say we will soon be able to inoculate ourselves, at home, by applying vaccines to their skin.
The researchers have devised a “non-invasive” way to use a specific protein to help vaccines pass through the skin’s outermost layers.
Making vaccines easier to administer, the Michigan scientists say, should boost patient compliance.
From a report, today:
“One particularly interesting aspect of this new non-invasive method is that the ‘boosters’ required for many vaccination protocols could be administered by the patients themselves. This could increase the success of vaccination campaigns in poor and remote regions of the world, where medical facilities are scarce.”
via Angewandte Chemie International Edition – Wiley InterScience.
