Scientist Creates New Drug Delivery System

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill created the Spatiotemporal On-Demand Patch (SOP), a new drug delivery system that can wirelessly receive commands from a smartphone or computer to schedule and trigger the release of drugs from individual microneedles. 
 
The team was led by pharmacology professor at the UNC School of Medicine Juan Song, and assistant professor of applied physical sciences at the UNC College of Arts and Sciences Wubin Bai. Their research was published in Nature Communications. 
 
The patch resembles a Band-Aid with a thin, soft platform that is designed to enhance user comfort and convenience for chronically ill patients. The SOP was tested in a mouse model, using melatonin in the microneedles to improve sleep.
 
Having the research published opens the door to further research in delivering on-demand treatments for neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease. 
 
“SOP’s ability to enable joint delivery of multiple drugs could address various aspects of Alzheimer’s Disease, such as reducing beta-amyloid plaques, mitigating neuroinflammation and enhancing cognitive function,” said Bai. 
 
UNC School of Medicine and UNC Health has funded a $25,000 pilot project to test the SOP in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s Disease. The National Foundation and the National Institutes of Health also funded this research.
 
The patch has highly localized treatment area of less than 1 square millimeter. It enables specific treatments to tissued organs or regions within the body, and drug release can be triggered within 30 seconds in response to an electrical signal. 
 
Song said, “the beauty of this device is that it can house dozens, if not hundreds, of concentrated drugs and can program their sequential release automatically. Rapid drug release can be crucial in emergency situations or when immediate therapeutic action is required.”
 
The microneedles are coated with gold to protect the drugs and surrounding tissues. The gold coating is disintegrated, exposing the drug coated microneedles to the skin initiating a controlled release of the drugs once as low-voltage electrical stimulus is applied through the patch.
 
“This level of specificity ensures precise and customized drug delivery, catering to the needs of different conditions or specific regions of the body,” said co-author Yihang Wang. “This offers a novel approach to achieving controlled drug release through a combination of materials science and electrical engineering.”
 
The patch has received a provisional patent. Patients could wear more than one patch at a time to reduce the need for medical attention such as hospital and doctor visits.