'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
A team of scientists have developed a painless way to deliver a vaccine shot without the use of a needle while offering a better immune response, they say.
Researchers from Stanford University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill say that their 3D-printed vaccine patch can offer an immune response that's much stronger than a vaccine delivered with a traditional jab.
As described in their paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in August, the polymer patch is one square centimetre in size and contains 100 3D-printed microneedles. The needles are 700 micrometres long; just barely long enough to penetrate the skin and deliver the vaccine.
When tested on mice, the researchers found that the vaccine patch generated an antibody response that was 20 times higher than a traditional needle shot after three weeks and 50 times higher after a month.
Needle shots typically bypass the skin and are instead injected in the muscle or the subcutaneous space, which refers to the layer of tissue underneath the skin. But because the skin is rich in immune cells, vaccines delivered into the skin cells, known as intradermal vaccination, often have improved efficacy, researchers say.
However, intradermal vaccination is difficult to administer with traditional needles and can be painful for the recipient.
Researchers say the vaccine patches with microneedles can solve these problems, providing an easy and painless way to deliver intradermal vaccines. This could also potentially reduce vaccine hesitancy for people who suffer from needle phobia, they say.
Needle shots typically need to be administered by trained professionals and have to be stored in freezers or refrigerators. However, vaccine patches have the vaccine embedded in the patch, which means that the vaccine can be self-administered and does not require any special storage units.
"In developing this technology, we hope to set the foundation for even more rapid global development of vaccines, at lower doses, in a pain- and anxiety-free manner,” said lead researcher Joseph DeSimone in a news release.
While microneedles aren't new, co-lead author Shaomin Tian says that manufacturing challenges have held back the development of this technology. It's difficult to mass-produce microneedles that are adapted to different types of vaccines and are sharp enough to penetrate the skin, she explained.
However, Tian said the 3D-printed nature of these microneedles can address such manufacturing challenges. The microneedles can be customized to be used for the flu, measles, hepatitis or COVID-19 vaccines.
“Our approach allows us to directly 3D print the microneedles, which gives us lots of design latitude for making the best microneedles from a performance and cost point of view,” she said in the news release.
The research team's next step is to integrate the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna into the patches.
“One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned during the pandemic is that innovation in science and technology can make or break a global response,” DeSimone said.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
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A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.