The Tattooing Process is Being Researched As A New Way For Vaccines To Be Given
By Sidra Lackey
If you’re like most people when going to the doctors, getting a shot causes anxiety. But what if instead of getting a shot with a hypodermic needle, you got a shot with tattoo needles?
Almost one-third of people in America are tattooed and now the process of tattooing is being explored as a method of delivering drugs (medicines) to the skin. How cool is that?!
"I took interest in it because I didn't know people actually researched tattoos. I don't have one of my own, but I find tattoos really cool. So, I was like, 'whoa, yeah, I'm in,'” said Idera Lawal, the man behind the six week project that studied the physics involved in intradermal drug delivery using tattoo devices. Idera Lawal, a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas Tech University with research interests in: medical tattooing and drug delivery, was given the assignment of studying how the mechanisms of tattooing could be used as an intradermal (injections administered into the dermis, just below the epidermis) drug delivery system. The result was a positive one. Lawal’s original research gave great insight into a new method for delivering fluids, which could create a useful system for administering vaccines in the near future.
Lawal’s research paper, "Visualization of drug delivery via tattooing: effect of needle reciprocating frequency and fluid properties," was published earlier in the year in the Journal of Visualization. Lawal also presented his research with a video, Skin deep: visualization of tattoo injections that demonstrates his work, at APS (American Physical Society).
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBnXmTxUlys&feature=emb_title) In the video “We utilize a five needle flat array (5F) with a tattoo machine to inject fluids into gelatin gels with modulus ∼ 15 kPa. High-speed imaging was used to visualize the injection process and estimate the amount of fluid delivered after each injection up to the 50 th injection,” Lawal explained. “We investigate the role of reciprocating frequency (f = O(10 − 100) Hz) and physical properties of the fluids on the volume infused (Vo ∼ O(100) nL) after injection. We find that Vo is only slightly dependent on f, however volume delivered increases with decreasing viscosity,” Lawal proclaimed.
Tattoo needles used to deliver vaccines have the prospect of applying vaccines to larger areas of the skin, using many more, yet smaller punctures. The sizable application area and the body’s immune system response allows the possibility of smaller doses and less side effects.
Idera Lawal’s remarkable research on how the tattooing process can be successfully used as a method for patients receiving vaccines, is groundbreaking and hopefully in the future will be an option one can receive, when getting a vaccine.