Iron deficiency is one of the most prevalent and serious health issues among people all over the world. Iron-dextran (ID) colloidal solution is one among the very few US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved iron sources for parenteral administration of iron. Parenteral route does not allow frequent administration because of its invasiveness and other associated complications. The main ai...

In vivo electroporation is an appealing method to deliver nucleic acid into living tissues, but the clinical application of such a method was limited due to severe tissue damage and poor coverage of the tissue surface. Here we present the validation of a novel flexible microneedle array electrode (MNAE) chip, in which the microneedle array and the flexible substrate are integrated together to s...

Microneedle rollers have been used to treat large areas of skin for cosmetic purposes and to increase skin permeability for drug delivery. In this study, we introduce a polymer microneedle roller fabricated by inclined rotational UV lithography, replicated by micromolding hydrophobic polylactic acid and hydrophilic carboxy-methyl-cellulose. These microneedles created micron-scale holes in human...

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While therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) that uses blood as the biological matrix is the traditional gold standard, this practice may be impossible, impractical, or unethical for some patient populations (e.g., elderly, pediatric, anemic) and those with fragile veins. In the context of finding an alternative biological matrix for TDM, this manuscript will provide a qualitative review on: (1) the...

BACKGROUND Influenza is a contagious disease caused by a pathogenic virus, with outbreaks all over the world and thousands of hospitalizations and deaths every year. Due to virus antigenic drift and short-lived immune responses, annual vaccination is required. However, vaccine coverage is incomplete, and improvement in immunization is needed. The objective of this study is to investigate a nove...

Background: Pre-exposure to radiofrequency radiations of mobile phones would significantly increase the survival rate of exposed animals compared to those exposed to a lethal dose of gamma radiation alone. Stimulation of the immune system is believed to be a key mechanism for the induction of this phenomenon, the so-called “adaptive response.” The immune system protects organisms against in...

We propose a microneedle coated with silver (Ag) to detect analytes at low concentrations positioned at a depth of more than 700 μm below the surface of a skin phantom with absorbers and scatterers for mimicking the intradermal surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) measurements. The Ag layer in the Ag-coated microneedle-based probe is found to be the key to the effective detection of analyte...

The aim of this work was to coat pH-sensitive microneedle arrays with inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) particles and N-trimethyl chitosan chloride (TMC) via electrostatic interactions, and assess the immunogenicity of the vaccine after topical application of the coated microneedles in rats. The surface of 200 μm long microneedles was first chemically modified with pH-sensitive (pyridine) groups ...