Amazing stuff! Can we get rid of syringes please! No refrigeration!
They call it biolistic delivery. Sounds almost like ballistic delivery! 😊
"A new method has been developed to deliver vaccines and biologics in a powdered form that by encasing it in a metal–organic framework (MOF). This encapsulation also has the advantage that it stabilises pharmaceuticals meaning that no refrigeration is needed for drugs like vaccines. Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas presented their work on this needleless MOF-Jet injector system, which is driven by compressed gas ..."
From the significance and abstract:
"Significance
Syringe-based delivery of vaccines has several drawbacks that call for the investigation of effective alternatives for skin route-based delivery. Biolistic delivery is a promising alternative, but the high shear stress and the requirement that liposomes be formulated as dry powders make such an approach impossible due to the biomaterial’s fragility. Here, we demonstrate a cost-effective, needle-free method of delivering cargo-loaded liposomes into the skin via biolistic delivery. This study leads us in a promising direction of future research where the clinical relevance of biolistic delivery could be further investigated without much concern for damage caused to the encapsulated biomaterials in the process.
Abstract
Needle-and-syringe-based delivery has been the commercial standard for vaccine administration to date. With worsening medical personnel availability, increasing biohazard waste production, and the possibility of cross-contamination, we explore the possibility of biolistic delivery as an alternate skin-based delivery route. Delicate formulations like liposomes are inherently unsuitable for this delivery model as they are fragile biomaterials incapable of withstanding shear stress and are exceedingly difficult to formulate as a lyophilized powder for room temperature storage. Here we have developed a approach to deliver liposomes into the skin biolistically—by encapsulating them in a nano-sized shell made of Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-8 (ZIF-8). When encapsulated within a crystalline and rigid coating, the liposomes are not only protected from thermal stress, but also shear stress. This protection from stressors is crucial, especially for formulations with cargo encapsulated inside the lumen of the liposomes. Moreover, the coating provides the liposomes with a solid exterior that allows the particles to penetrate the skin effectively. In this work, we explored the mechanical protection ZIF-8 provides to liposomes as a preliminary investigation for using biolistic delivery as an alternative to syringe-and-needle–based delivery of vaccines. We demonstrated that liposomes with a variety of surface charges could be coated with ZIF-8 using the right conditions, and this coating can be just as easily removed—without causing any damage to the protected material. The protective coating prevented the liposomes from leaking cargo and helped in their effective penetration when delivered into the agarose tissue model and porcine skin tissue."
I presume this is the related research article:
Biolistic delivery of liposomes protected in metal-organic frameworks (no public access, but here is a link to the PDF)
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