MPM non-invasive imaging of biological interactions following drug delivery with micro-nanoprojection patches.

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The overarching aim of my research is to develop and evaluate effective, practical and reproducible physical methods for delivering genes and drugs to specific immunologically-sensitive cells in the skin to ultimately treat and vaccinate against human diseases. I recently patented a method using arrays of nano-scale projections on a patch to accurately, efficiently and safely deliver biomolecules not just to specific skin cells, but also to organelles within them. Conceptually, the delivery device is a set of microscopic nanoneedles coated with drug substance and applied to the skin as a small patch. The device is practical, needle-free and pain-free. The aim of this current project is to use the micro-nanoprojection array patches-configured to uniquely deliver biomolecules to cells within given strata-to find: 1) what delivery sites of antigen-expression plasmid- toll like receptor (TLR) agonist lead to strong humoral immune responses in the intact animal. 2) whether delivery of different TLR agonists have different effects on the maturation and migration of the different professional antigen presenting cells (APCs) in the skin, as visualised locally by Multi-Photon Microscopy (MPM). 3) whether differences in APC maturation and migration are associated with different systemic antibody responses. We will identify optimal delivery sites of drugs-vaccines to the skin (layer, cells targeted, duration of delivery) with MPM for desired systemic immune responses. This will have important contributions towards improving immunotherapeutics of major diseases via skin targeting with micro-nanoprojection array patch technologies (and other methods).