Related Experiment Videos
Microneedles for drug delivery via the gastrointestinal tract
Giovanni Traverso1, Carl M Schoellhammer, Avi Schroeder
1Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Abstract:
Both patients and physicians prefer the oral route of drug delivery. The gastrointestinal (GI) tract, though, limits the bioavailability of certain therapeutics because of its protease and bacteria-rich environment as well as general pH variability from pH 1 to 7. These extreme environments make oral delivery particularly challenging for the biologic class of therapeutics. Here, we demonstrate proof-of-concept experiments in swine that microneedle-based delivery has the capacity for improved bioavailability of a biologically active macromolecule. Moreover, we show that microneedle-containing devices can be passed and excreted from the GI tract safely. These findings strongly support the success of implementation of microneedle technology for use in the GI tract.