Vaccinations could be made less painful by treating skin with a vaccine-laden liquid and using ultrasound to push it into the body

Vaccines can be delivered through the skin using ultrasound. This method doesn’t damage the skin and eliminates the need for painful needles. To create a needle-free vaccine, Darcy Dunn-Lawless at the University of Oxford and his colleagues mixed vaccine molecules with tiny, cup-shaped proteins. They then applied liquid mixture to the skin of mice and exposed it to ultrasound – like that used for sonograms – for about a minute and a half.

  • Joshua Hershey@lemm.eeEnglish
    332·
    11 months ago

    We are one step closer to hypo sprays from Star Trek. I don’t like needles so this will be really neat to see in mass adoption.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      11 months ago

      Hyposprays already were invented, mass produced, used as standard in the military for several years, and abandoned because they weren’t as hygienic as needles.

      Anything that pushes through the skin into the blood pushes pathogens in too. Statistically, needles were safer so hyposprays were abandoned.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
        61·
        11 months ago

        Presumably the version they use in Star Trek avoids that problem somehow, so it’s still a thing that would need to be invented.

        • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          The doctors are constantly jabbing people one right after another and often through the uniform…I’d love to see the explanation in universe for that

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.worldEnglish
            21·
            11 months ago

            Medicine is improved so everyone has super immunity in the future. So it’s not that the hypo isn’t pushing dirt into their veins, it’s that they don’t care.