Gizmodo: drug delivery

Aespironics Drug Inhaler Should Fit in Wallet, Be Cheap, Effective

Kit Eaton — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:15:00 EDT

An Israeli company, Aespironics, is trying a new approach in re-designing an old faithful drug delivery system: the inhaler. They've teamed up with an expert in drug atomization and a wind turbine researcher, and have come up with a breath-activated, turbine-assisted design that should be slim, cheap and easy to produce, and deliver dry drugs to the users lungs without leaving them sticking inside the mouth. Sounds amazing doesn't it? Particularly when you consider the implications of a simple, compact and cheap dispenser for aiding ill people in the developing world. The team is planning tests for the year end, and thinks a product could be on the market within three years. If it's an inhaler slim enough to fit in a wallet, I'll take one soon, please: lugging around a conventional one is annoying. [I21c via Medgadget]

Medidome Syringe Aims for Veins with Kid-Friendly Design

Kit Eaton — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:59:00 EDT

We've brought you inventions that aim to replace the scary-looking hypodermic syringe before, but this new design reinvents the device in a kid-friendly package. Designed by Christopher Holden, a student at Northumbria University in the UK, MediDome combines drug and needle in a stick-on blister, designed for a single use only. So it reduces the risk of needle-stick injury, and looks much friendlier to kids. You simply stick it on, and compress it until the drug is delivered: it's even got an integrated alert system to check you've not ruptured a vein, and a built-in tamper warning. It's now being patented, so it's a product we might actually see for real sometime. [Medgadget]

Scientists Do Micro-Origami, Make Tiny Drug-Delivery Package

Kit Eaton — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Researchers at USC's Information Sciences Institute produced this amazing pyramid, around 30 microns across, which may one day be used to deliver precise micro- or nano-doses of medication. The structures, dubbed "voxels" are made of silicon, cut into flats and then folded up and sealed to enclose tiny volumes of space inside. The team hasn't stopped at pyramids either— they've tried flat envelopes, cubes and partial dodecahedra, but these don't close together the way the pyramid does.

The flat shapes are first carved out of polysilicon sheets lying on a gold film using standard commercial techniques. The hinge areas are improved with some etching. Then they're electro-coated with permalloy, making them magnetic but leaving the hinges free. Folding and closing the shapes is the tricky part, requiring bending using magnetic fields, and then submersion in water. As the shapes dry capillary action draws the voxels closed. They plan on improving the folding precision and the strength of the bonds at each side of the voxel, which might be possible with carefully directed water jets.

The team also think that even smaller voxels, and also mass production will be possible. And not a paper-cut in sight. [USC ISI and Physorg]