Fabrication of Polymer Hollow Microneedles for Transdermal Sample Extraction

在经皮给药、皮肤液体和血液提取等方面，传统的不锈钢针给患者带来了疼痛，并且难以与其他医疗器械在护理点测试领域进行整合。解决这些限制的一种方法是微针阵列，因为它的侵入面积/深度最小，造成的疼痛更少，并且能够与其他微设备集成。此外，到目前为止还没有微针感染病例的报告。这种微针可以是实心的，也可以是空心的，长度为100-900微米，外径不超过300微米。支持公司ExVivo Labs正在开拓用于筛查过敏的新型医疗技术。其过敏测试贴片是基于使用微针提取疾病指示生物标志物，如免疫球蛋白e (IgE)，它介导I型超敏反应，称为过敏。在之前资助的Engage项目中，我们的目标是使用MEMS微加工技术，特别是光刻和深硅刻蚀，制造空心硅微针阵列。制造的针头随后将被磨尖到10微米以下，以便无痛插入皮肤。在目前的Engage Plus项目中，我们的目标是制造在某些方面优于硅的聚合物空心微针阵列。

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.