Even people with needle neuroses don't have to dread getting shots anymore. Researchers at Stanford University have developed a liquid vaccination that offers an ouchless alternative. It can be applied directly to the skin, and provides the same results as the old standard shot in the arm or the keester, minus the pain.
"It’s a new way of thinking about vaccinations," said Hongran Fan, the project's lead researcher. "The benefit is that it's cheap and easy to make and store."
Read ongoing Med-Tech coverage - - - - - -
In their standard protein form, most vaccines are fairly impractical. One problem is that they are expensive to make. They require constant refrigeration and a trained professional to administer the injection.
As a result, developing countries with few resources have a difficult time getting access to vaccinations for illnesses like hepatitis B.
Scientists at Stanford's department of dermatology have found a way around these obstacles with the new topical vaccine made of DNA, which can be stored at room temperature and absorbs nicely through hair follicles of the skin.
"For this method we topically apply the DNA to the skin, in a liquid solution, like water," Fan said. "You don’t need to break the barrier of the skin at all. You don’t need to use a needle."
Previously, it was thought that in order for the vaccine to work properly, skin needed to be physically abraded to stimulate the immune system against an invading bug.
But Fan's team found that when the topical vaccine for hepatitis B was applied to the skin of mice, it induced nearly the same immune response as that of standard vaccines.
"We found that our way of doing vaccines is almost as potent as a normal injection of commercial vaccines," Fan said. "But there's a lot you can do to make the vaccine stronger."
The team tried experiments with two kinds of mice — those with regular hair follicles, and those with abnormally few hair follicles, also known as "nude" mice. Fan found that the mice with normal follicles absorbed the DNA completely and had a positive immune response to the vaccine, but the mice without the hair follicles had no response.
"Without the hair follicles, the DNA will not get in," Fan said. "With the normal mice, the DNA was retained. In the nude mice, there was no DNA retained. It just washed out."
So far the research has been tested only on mice, but future applications for the new vaccine could mean cheaper and more accessible medicine for people in both technologically advanced and developing countries.
"Just imagine, one day you could wear a vaccine patch on your arm," Fan said. "Everybody is going to benefit from this."
