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Syringes and needles have been used for immunization since 1853. This way of application is very old and very good, but it has a lot of disadvantages like high expenses in preservation of vaccines, complications with needle application, discomfort at 10% of the patients and phobia caused by needles etc. A revolution in human vaccines is currently under development. This revolution is called Nanopatch vaccines. This Nanopatch approach is made of an array of thousands of vaccine- coated microprojections which perforate skin but only its outer layers. This is maybe one of the greatest achievements, because this way of application is absolutely painless. This way of application is made not to reach the deeper layers of the skin where nerve endings are located. Major doubt about this way of application was the question- will there be enough material which will activate immune system, because there is used only a tiny fraction of the dose. The answer is- YES. Yes, there is sufficient amount of immune material because there is a huge difference between conservative way and the Nanopatch way of presentation.

Conservative way with syringes and needles is oriented on muscle cells, but the Nanopatch technology is oriented on skin cells. It has been proven in past 30 years that skin, unlike muscle, is rammed full of immune cells. Those immune cells are dendritic cells (DC) which are potent antigen presenting cells. Whereas the biological characteristics and immunological functions of epidermal DC known as Langernahs cells (LC) have been the focus of intense research in the past, less is known regarding their dermal counterparts named dermal dendritic cells (DDC). Because of the lack in immune cells in muscle cell, skin is preferable place for vaccines.

Benefits of Nanopatch vaccines

The outer layer of skin is different from person to person. It varies in thickness, humidity, age, gender and other factors. This is one of the potential problems for Nanopatch vaccine application, but Nanopatch application achieves delivery of vaccine by choosing the coated Nanopatch arrays with an adequate applicator. This is the way of skipping possible problems related to dose.

Another important advantage of Nanopatch vaccines is the way of preserving. This vaccines are not like conventional vaccines because they don’t need cold chain for transport. Professor Mark Kendall from University of Queensland's Institute for Biotechnology and Nanotechnology and his team have tested these vaccines in extreme conditions. They traveled to Papua New Guinea, which is one of the leading countries in infection with HPV virus. They were in extreme conditions with nearly 100% humidity and they have not noticed loss in vaccines activity. This was a huge achievement for this team, because they cut out expenses, and there was no danger that vaccines will be ineffective or possibly harmful.

Next benefit of these Nanopatch vaccines is expenses cost effectiveness. This is so far the main benefit for most of the countries in development. These vaccines could be made for fifty times less cost than many current vaccines. This price could cure the people from the countries which cannot afford many current vaccines. Also cost effectiveness can be increased with cost savings due to using less vaccine to reach an effective immunization, reduction of cold chains and, for sure, reduction in the costs which are connected with needle injuries. There are some opinions that these vaccines could be sent by mail in remote parts of the countries or even remote parts of the world! Those mailed vaccines could be applied by people themselves even by people who have fobia of needles, because it is absolutely not painful and there are no complications which we have in conventional way of application.

Needles and syringes have also risk of blood-transmitted diseases like Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Human Immunodeficiency Virus and other viruses. With this way of vaccine application there is no risk of infection with similar viruses.

This benefits from above are strong and unique in world of vaccines. Therefore this way of application may be suitable for a vast majority of vaccines.

History of Development

This way of application is still under development. Professor Mark Kendall from University of Queensland's Institute for Biotechnology and Nanotechnology and his team have only tested this type of immunization on mice using various inoculations. In animals treated with influenza vaccines, Nanopatch induced immune response with a tiny dose which was ten times better than any other way of application.

Beside this influenza vaccine there were good results with Human Papiloma Virus vaccine, Human Simplex Virus, Chikungunya Virus and West Nile Virus. Although this type of vaccination has shown great results, it has a long, long way to go to bring what is still an experimental device to market, but Professor Mark Kendall from University of Queensland's Institute for Biotechnology and Nanotechnology and his team are sure that this way of immunization will be the future of vaccines.

There were attempts of creation similar with this Nanopatch system but all of them were failures. The Austrian biotech firm Intercell tried to create experimental VEP (vaccine enhancement patch) system against pandemic flu. This project was a complete failure. However this system had completely different way of action which was applied after a needle vaccination and it was designed to boost vaccines effect. But this Nanopatch vaccine applies directly, in outer layers of the skin. Than it is presented to immune skin cells without adjuvant.

This way of application is definitely utopia of all vaccine applications as it is, according to recent studies, more effective than any other way of application and costs about fifty times less than then many current vaccines. If it shows good results in human trials, it will definitely bring bright future to human vaccination.