13 January 2024 | Yihang Wang, Zeka Chen, Brayden Davis, Will Lipman, Sicheng Xing, Lin Zhang, Tian Wang, Priyash Hafiz, Wanrong Xie, Zijie Yan, Zhili Huang, Juan Song & Wubin Bai
A spatiotemporal on-demand patch (SOP) is introduced for precise, real-time drug delivery through the skin. The SOP integrates drug-loaded microneedles with biocompatible metallic membranes to enable electrically triggered drug release. It allows precise drug release to targeted areas (<1 mm²), rapid response to electrical triggers (<30 s), and multimodal operation involving both drug release and electrical stimulation. Solution-based fabrication ensures high customizability and scalability for various pharmaceutical needs. The wireless-powered and digital-controlled SOP demonstrates great promise in achieving full automation of drug delivery, improving user adherence while ensuring medical precision. The SOP was utilized in sleep studies, revealing that programmed release of exogenous melatonin improves sleep in mice, indicating potential values for basic research and clinical treatments.
Transdermal drug delivery is vital for medical treatments, but user adherence to long-term drug delivery poses a challenge. The lack of an automated mechanism for precise, coordinated drug administration over extended periods hinders its applicability for chronic pharmaceutical management. Microneedles have shown promise in facilitating drug delivery, but the complexity involved in fabrication poses challenges for manufacturing scalability. Chemical functionalization on MNs provides a solution to introduce self-sensing and self-responsiveness capabilities. The SOP uses a thin gold layer (-150 nm) coated onto MNs to enable drug encapsulation and protection at the standby stage. Small electrical triggers (-2.5 V, DC) for 30 s effectively disintegrate the gold coating, which exposes the drug to initiate delivery. Microfabrication processes enable circuitry designs of the gold layer to realize release triggering of individual MNs or subsections through a wireless communication module (e.g., Near-field communication, Bluetooth Low Energy). The SOP demonstrates ultrafine spatial control (<1 mm²) of drug release of single MN, active management with high temporal (less than 30 s) resolution of drug release, wireless operation, and comfort wearability. Both benchtop experiments using a fluorescent dye and in vivo study through intracranial injection demonstrate the high potential of SOP as a general, fully wireless, wearable platform for personalized, chronic drug delivery to improve pharmaceutical efficacy and user adherence. The SOP also reveals potential utility for neural therapy and modulation. The high spatiotemporal resolution and SOP's on-demand drug release feature make it an advanced tool for brain research with model animals, especially in studying neural circuits mapping and cause-and-effect relationships between neural activity and behavior. The SOP's ability to deliver therapeutic agents sequentially and proactively to specific brain regions associated with neurological disorders may deepen our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of their pathologies. This insight can lead to the development of more targeted treatments for disorders like Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, depression, and Alzheimer's disease.A spatiotemporal on-demand patch (SOP) is introduced for precise, real-time drug delivery through the skin. The SOP integrates drug-loaded microneedles with biocompatible metallic membranes to enable electrically triggered drug release. It allows precise drug release to targeted areas (<1 mm²), rapid response to electrical triggers (<30 s), and multimodal operation involving both drug release and electrical stimulation. Solution-based fabrication ensures high customizability and scalability for various pharmaceutical needs. The wireless-powered and digital-controlled SOP demonstrates great promise in achieving full automation of drug delivery, improving user adherence while ensuring medical precision. The SOP was utilized in sleep studies, revealing that programmed release of exogenous melatonin improves sleep in mice, indicating potential values for basic research and clinical treatments.
Transdermal drug delivery is vital for medical treatments, but user adherence to long-term drug delivery poses a challenge. The lack of an automated mechanism for precise, coordinated drug administration over extended periods hinders its applicability for chronic pharmaceutical management. Microneedles have shown promise in facilitating drug delivery, but the complexity involved in fabrication poses challenges for manufacturing scalability. Chemical functionalization on MNs provides a solution to introduce self-sensing and self-responsiveness capabilities. The SOP uses a thin gold layer (-150 nm) coated onto MNs to enable drug encapsulation and protection at the standby stage. Small electrical triggers (-2.5 V, DC) for 30 s effectively disintegrate the gold coating, which exposes the drug to initiate delivery. Microfabrication processes enable circuitry designs of the gold layer to realize release triggering of individual MNs or subsections through a wireless communication module (e.g., Near-field communication, Bluetooth Low Energy). The SOP demonstrates ultrafine spatial control (<1 mm²) of drug release of single MN, active management with high temporal (less than 30 s) resolution of drug release, wireless operation, and comfort wearability. Both benchtop experiments using a fluorescent dye and in vivo study through intracranial injection demonstrate the high potential of SOP as a general, fully wireless, wearable platform for personalized, chronic drug delivery to improve pharmaceutical efficacy and user adherence. The SOP also reveals potential utility for neural therapy and modulation. The high spatiotemporal resolution and SOP's on-demand drug release feature make it an advanced tool for brain research with model animals, especially in studying neural circuits mapping and cause-and-effect relationships between neural activity and behavior. The SOP's ability to deliver therapeutic agents sequentially and proactively to specific brain regions associated with neurological disorders may deepen our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of their pathologies. This insight can lead to the development of more targeted treatments for disorders like Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, depression, and Alzheimer's disease.