Electrically Triggered Microneedle Arrays for On-demand Drug Delivery (2023)

Undergraduates: William Lipman, Presenting with me: Brayden Davis, Not Presenting: Tian Wang, (Direct Supervisor/Graduate Student: Yihang Wang)

Faculty Advisor: Wubin Bai
Department: Applied Science and Engineering

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With an ever-growing need for precise medication and treatment administration, the advancement of drug delivery technology has become a topic of great importance. There are significant issues with the devices available to patients at present time, including a lack of customizability and a reliance on the patient to initiate a treatment that requires consistent doses of medication. Our solution is the spatiotemporal on-demand patch (SOP), a microneedle device that allows for accurate drug delivery to 1 mm^2 of precision without hindering its ability to provide timely drug release. An electric stimulus provided within the same device initiates the drug release within 30 seconds causing a topical layer of metal that covers the surface of each microneedle to decay, uncovering the drug layer of the microneedle. Using a scalable molding strategy that facilitates the SOP’s creation, the stipulations required by a specific patient can easily be met by changing the speed of drug delivery, the dose of the medication, or the frequency of the release in order to personalize the device to its end-user. The novelties of such a device provide it with an endless number of applications, and the ability to become a large component of the pharmaceutical industry in the years to come.

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