Did You Get Your Vaccine Tattoo?

A recent Nature Materials paper reports on a surprising and somewhat contradictory-sounding approach for safe and painless vaccinations--microneedles.

Actually, it's an array of very small needles. These can be coated with DNA or proteins, and then used to push the coating into the epidermal layer of the skin to introduce a layer of biologically active molecules where they can remain for days to weeks.  This gives the body more time to respond, which can be useful for some drugs, such as vaccines.  Basically, you're tattooing a layer of a drug just under the skin....Read Full Post

Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - January 26, 2013 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news