Fabrication of Polymer Hollow Microneedles for Transdermal Sample Extraction

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For transdermal drug delivery, skin fluid and blood extraction, the conventional stainless steel needle causespain to the patients and is hard to be integrated with other medical devices at point-of-care-test fields. Onesolution to those limitations is micro-needle array because of its minimal invasive area/depth causing less painand ability to be integrated with other micro-devices. Moreover, no cases of infection by micro-needles havebeen reported so far. Such micro-needles can be solid or hollow with a length of 100-900 µm and an externaldiameter of not more than 300 µm. The supporting company ExVivo Labs is pioneering novel point-of-caremedical technologies for screening allergies. Its allergy test patches are based on extraction using micro-needlearray of disease indicating biomarkers, such as immunoglobulin-E (IgE), which mediates type I hypersensitivityreactions, known as allergies. In the previous funded Engage project, we aimed to fabricate hollow siliconmicro-needle array using MEMS microfabrication techniques, notably photolithography and deep siliconetching. The fabricated needles will be subsequently sharpened to under 10 micrometers for painless insertioninto skin. In the current Engage Plus project, we aim to fabricate polymer hollow micro-needle array that isadvantageous over silicon in certain aspects.