Scientists Develop New Technique to Deliver Vaccines without Needles

In this May 5, 2022, file photo, a nurse administers the Pfizer booster shot at a COVID-19 vaccination and testing site in Los Angeles. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
In this May 5, 2022, file photo, a nurse administers the Pfizer booster shot at a COVID-19 vaccination and testing site in Los Angeles. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
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Scientists Develop New Technique to Deliver Vaccines without Needles

In this May 5, 2022, file photo, a nurse administers the Pfizer booster shot at a COVID-19 vaccination and testing site in Los Angeles. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
In this May 5, 2022, file photo, a nurse administers the Pfizer booster shot at a COVID-19 vaccination and testing site in Los Angeles. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images, FILE

British researchers announced that they have developed a new technique that delivers vaccines in the body without needles. The technique could help deliver vaccines through the skin via ultrasounds without using needles that harm the skin and cause pain. The findings were presented at an international conference in Australia on Monday.

An estimated quarter of adults and two-thirds of children have strong fears around needles, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet, public health depends on people being willing to receive vaccines, which are often administered by a jab.

The new method relies on ultrasound pulses to form small bubbles that clear passages through the skin. Then, the pulses deliver the vaccine molecules through the bubbles, which allows its diffusion in the surrounding tissues.

“Our method relies on an acoustic effect called ‘cavitation,’ which is the formation and popping of bubbles in response to a sound wave,” said Darcy Dunn-Lawless, lead author from the University of Oxford’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering.

“We aim to harness the concentrated bursts of mechanical energy produced by these bubble collapses in three main ways. First, to clear passages through the outer layer of dead skin cells and allow vaccine molecules to pass through. Second, to act as a pump that drives the drug molecules into these passages. Lastly, to open up the membranes surrounding the cells themselves, since some types of vaccine must get inside a cell to function,” she explained.

Initial in vivo tests reported that the vaccine molecules delivered by the new approach produced a higher immune response, according to the Eurekalert website.

The researchers theorize this could be due to the immune-rich skin the ultrasonic delivery targets in contrast to the muscles that receive the jab.

According to Lawless, the result is a more efficient vaccine that could help reduce costs and increase efficacy with little risk of side effects. The team plans further research to explore the efficacy and safety of the new approach for specific vaccines like DNA vaccines.



China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
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China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS

Two Chinese astronauts this week completed a world-record spacewalk of more than nine hours, according to a statement from China's Manned Space Agency, marking another milestone for Beijing's rapidly expanding space program.

The spacewalk, carried out by Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong outside the Tiangong space station in low-Earth orbit on Tuesday, was at least four minutes longer than the last record set by NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms in 2001, according to Reuters.

The two astronauts of China's Shenzhou-19 mission donned their Feitian spacesuits to carry out an array of tasks on the station's exterior, including the installation of space-debris protection devices, China's space agency said.

"They successfully completed all the planned tasks and felt very excited about it," Wu Hao, a staffer from the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, told China Central Television, a state broadcaster.

The former Soviet Union in 1965 became the first nation to carry out a spacewalk. Since then, Russia and the United States have conducted hundreds of such missions, primarily outside the International Space Station for tasks ranging from solar panel installations to materials research.

The first spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut occurred in 2008.

China's spacewalking milestone this week comes amid a flurry of other recent cosmic achievements that have boosted Beijing's competitive footing with the United States.

China landed its first rover on Mars in 2021 and earlier this year became the first country to retrieve rock samples from the moon's treacherous far side in its Chang'e-6 mission.

Beijing is targeting 2030 to land its first astronauts on the moon to become the second country after the US to put humans there. Beijing has courted roughly a dozen countries for its International Lunar Research Station program, an effort to build a moon base on the moon's south pole.

That program rivals NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return US astronauts to the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission of 1972.