Title :
Arrays of solvent cast hollow out-of-plane polymer microneedles for drug delivery
Author :
Mansoor, I. ; Häfeli, U.O. ; Stoeber, B.
Author_Institution :
Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Abstract :
Microneedles are tiny hollow structures that allow painless drug delivery into human skin. In this work, we present a novel fabrication method for microstructures based on solvent casting that allows rapid fabrication of inexpensive microneedles from polymer materials. The polymer microneedles are formed on a reusable mold made with a single photolithography step. The strength of the fabricated microneedles under compressive loading was investigated. The capability of the microneedles for drug delivery was also demonstrated by injection of fluorescent beads into rabbit ear skin and inspection of the penetration depth using confocal microscopy.
Keywords :
bioMEMS; biomedical equipment; casting; drug delivery systems; microfabrication; optical microscopy; photolithography; polymers; skin; compressive loading; confocal microscopy; drug delivery; fabrication method; fluorescent bead injection; human skin; microstructures; out-of-plane polymer microneedles; penetration depth; photolithography; rabbit ear skin; reusable mold; solvent casting; tiny hollow structures; Casting; Fabrication; Fluorescence; Needles; Polymers; Skin; Solvents;
Conference_Titel :
Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), 2011 IEEE 24th International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Cancun
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-9632-7
DOI :
10.1109/MEMSYS.2011.5734603
