High-fidelity replication of thermoplastic microneedles with open microfluidic channels

摘要

A cheap and reliable technique for manufacturing microneedles could lead to painless, point-of-care diagnostics and drug delivery. Microneedle devices are designed to pierce skin and capillaries without causing pain or the need for medical expertise. Made from metal, silicon and polymers, the batch manufacturing of microneedles has been hampered by the cost and complexity of current fabrication techniques. By combining high resolution nanoscale printing and micomoulding techniques, Zahra Faraji Rad and colleagues from the University of New South Wales in Australia and the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, have developed a new method that could enable the large-scale manufacturing of open-channel microneedle arrays. First, prototype microneedles with open microfluidic channels are fabricated using a 3D laser stereolithography system, Nanoscribe Photonic Professional GT, and then copies are made by soft-embossing thermoplastics to produce microneedle arrays with high fidelity at the submicron level.