Demo: A needle-free vaccine patch that's safer and way cheaper

It's a pleasure to be here

in Edinburgh, Scotland,

the birthplace of the needle and syringe.

Less than a mile from here in this direction

in 1853 a Scotsman

filed his very first patent on the needle and syringe.

His name was Alexander Wood

and it was at the Royal College of Physicians.

This is the patent.

What blows my mind when I look at it even today

is that it looks almost identical

to needle in use today

Yet, it's 160 years old.

So we turn to the field of vaccines

most vaccines are delivered with

the needle and syringe,

this 160 year old technology.

And credit where its due on many levels

vaccines are a successful technology.

After clean water and sanitation,

vaccines are the one technology that has increased

our life span the most.

That's a pretty hard act to beat.

But just like any other technology

vaccines have their shortcomings

and the needle, the needle and syringe

is a key part within that narrative ...

this old technology.

So let's start with the obvious:

many of us don't like the needle and syringe.

I share that view.

However, 20 percent of the population

have a thing called needle phobia.

That's more than disliking the needle

that is actively avoiding being vaccinated

because of needle phobia.

And that's problematic in terms of the rollout

of vaccines.

Now related to this is another key issue

which is needlestick injuries.

And the WHO has figures

that suggest about 1.3 million deaths per year

take place due to cross contamination

with needlestick injuries.

These are early deaths that take place.

Now these are two things that
you probably may have heard of

but there are two other shortcomings of

the needle and syringe you may not have heard about.

One is it could be holding back

the next generation of vaccines

in terms of their immune responses.

And the second is that it could be responsible

for the problem of the cold chain

that I'll tell you about as well.

I'm going to tell you about some work that

my team and I are doing in Australia

at the University of Queensland

on a technology of design

to tackle those four problems.

And that technology is called the Nanopatch.

Now, this is a specimen of the Nanopatch.

To the naked eye

it just looks like a square

smaller than a postage stamp,

but under a microscope

what you see is thousands of tiny proejctions

that are invisible to the human eye.

And there's about 4 thousand projections

on this particular square compared

to the needle.

And I've designed those projections

to serve a key roll which is to work

with the skin's immune system.

So that's a very important function

tied into the Nanopatch.

Now we make the Nanopatch

with a technique

called deep reactive ion etching ...

and this particular technique is one that's been

borrowed from the semiconductor industry

and therefore, is low costing

and can be rolled out in large numbers.

Now we dry coat vaccines to the projections

of the Nanopatch

and apply it to the skin.

Now the simplest form of application

is using our finger

But our finger has some limitations.

So we've devised an applicator

and it's a very simple device

you could call it a sophisticated finger

it's a screen operated device.

What we do is when we apply the Nanopatch to the skin

as so

immediately a few things happen

so firstly the projections on

the Nanopatch breach through the tough outer layer

and the vaccine is very quickly released

within less than a minute in fact.

Then we can take the Nanopatch off

and discard it

And indeed we can make a reuse

of the applicator itself.

So that gives you an idea of

the Nanopatch and immediately

you can see some advantages

talk about a thing needle free.

These are projections that you can't even see

and of course we get around the needle-phobia

issue as well.

Now if we take a step back and think about these other two

really important advantages

one is improved immune responses through delivery

and the second is getting rid of the cold chain.

So let's start with the first one

this immune asdjfks idea takes a little while

to get our head around

but I'll try to explain it in simple terms

So I'll take a step back and explain to you

how vaccines work in a simple way

So vaccines work by introducing to our body

a thing called an antogen

which is a safe form of a germ.

Now that safe germ, that antogen,

tricks our body into an immune repsonse

learning and remembering how to deal with intruders

When the real intruder comes along

the body quickly mounts an immune response

to deal with that vaccine

and neutralizes the infection.

So it does that well.

Now, why it's done today

with the needle and syringe

is most vaccines are delivered with this old technology

and the needle but it could be argued

that the needle is holding back

our immune responses

it's missing our immune sweet spot

So to describe this idea

we need to take a journey through the skin

starting with one of those projections

and applying the Nanopatch to the skin

and we see this kind of data

Now this is real data

that thing that we can see there is one projection

from the Nanopatch that's been applied to the skin

and those colors are different layers.

Now to give you an idea of scale

if the needle was shown here it be much bigger

it be ten times bigger than the size of that screen

going ten times deeper as well.

It's off the grid in time

You can see immediately that we have those projections in the skin

that red layer is a tough outer layer of dead skin

but the brown layer

and the magenta layer

are jammed full of immune circles.

As one example in the brown layer

theres a certain type of cell called Langue

and so every square millimeter of our body

is jammed full of those Langerhan cells

body that we have explained in this image

but you can immediately see that the Nanopatch

achieves that penetration deep

we target thousands upon thousands of these particualar cells

just residing in the hairs width

surface of the skin

now as the guy that has invented this thing

and found out to do I find that exciting

But so what?

So what if you've targeted the cells

in the world of vaccines

what does that mean?

The world of vaccines is getting better

it's getting more systematic

however, you still don't reallly know if a vaccine is going to work

until you roll your sleeves up and vaccinate and wait

it's a gambler's game even today

So, we had to do that gamble.

We obtained a new kind of vaccine, we applied it to Nanopatches

and we applied the Nanopatches to the skin

and this isn't a live animal.

And we waited a month

and this is what we found out:

This is a data slide showing the immune responses that we've generated with a Nanopatch

compared to the needle a syringe and --

So in the horizontal access we have the dose show in Nanograms

on the vertical access we have the immune response generated on that dashed line

At that dashed line indicates the protection threshold

If we're above that dashed line it's considered

If we're below that line, it's not.

So the red line is mostly that curve

and as you see theres only one point achieved with the needle thats protected

and thats with a high dose of 6 thousand nanograms

but notice immediately the distinctly different curve that we achieve

with the blue line.

That's what's achieved with the nanopatch

the delivered dose of the Nanopatch is a completely different

immune- fads curve

that's a real fresh opportunity

suddenly we have a brand new leaver

in the world of vaccines

We can push it one way where we can take a vaccine that works

but is too expensive and we can get protection

with a hundredth of the dose

Or we can take it afkdaslf

down to ten cents and that's particularly important

within the developing world

But there's another angle to this as well

you can take vaccines that currently don't work

and get them over that line

and get them protective

And certainly in the world of vaccines

that can be important

let's consider the big three

HIV, Malaria, Tuberculosis

they're responsible for about 7 thousand deaths per year

and there is no adequate vaccination method for any of those.

So potentially with this new leaver that we have with the Nanopatch

we can help make that happen, we can push that leaver

to help get those asdfkasfjla vaccines over the line.

Now of course we've worked with the lab with many other vaccines

that have attained similar responses and similar curves

achieved with influenza

I'd like to now switch to talk about

another key shortcoming of today in vaccines

and that is the need to maintain the cold chain.

As the name suggests, it's the requirement of keeping a vaccine right from production

all the through to when the vaccine is applied

to keep it refrigerated.

Now, that presents some logistical challenges

but we have ways to do it.

This is a slightly extreme case in point

but it helps illustrate the logistical challenges

in particular settings of what's required to get settings to maintain the cold chain

if the vaccine is to warm the vaccine breaks down

but interestingly the vaccine can be too cold

and it will break down as well.

The steaks are very high

the WHR estimates that in Africa up to half

the vaccines used there

are considered to not be working properly because at some point

the cold chain has fallen over

So it's a big problem

and it's tied in with the needle and syringe

because the liquid at needs of refrigeration

A key attribute of our Nanopatch is that the vaccine is dry

and when it's dry it doesn't need refrigeration.

Within my lab theres we can keep the vaccine stored

at twenty-three degree's celcius for more than a year

without any loss

That's an important improvement.

(Applause)

We're delighted about it as well.

And the thing about it is that we've well and truly proven

the Nanopatch within the laboratory setting.

And as a scientist, I love that and I love science.

However, as an engineer,

as a biomedical engineer

and also as a human being,

I'm not going to be satisfied until we've

rolled this thing out and taken it out of the lab

and got it to people in large numbers

and particularly the people who need it the most.

So we've commenced this particular journey

and we've commenced it in an unusual way

We've started with Papua New Guinea.

Now Papua New Guinea

is an example of a developing world country

and its about the same size as France

but it suffers from many of the key barriers

existing within the world of todays vaccines.

There's logistics:

Within this country there are only 800 refrigerators

to keep vaccines chilled.

Many of them are old like this one in Port Moresby.

Many of them are breaking down

and many of them are not in the Highlands

where they are required.

That's a challenge.

But also, Papua New Guinea

has the worlds highest incidence of HPV,

Human Papilloma Virus, the cervical cancer vaccine.

Yet, that vacccine is not available in large numbers

because it's too expensive.

So for those two reasons

with the attributes of the Nanopatch

we've got into field

and worked with the Nanopatch

and taken it to Papua New Guinea

and we'll be following that up shortly.

Now doing this kind of work is not easy.

It's challenging,

but there's nothing else in the world

I'd rather be doing.

And as we look ahead

I'd like to share with you a thought —

it's the thought of a future where

the 17 million deaths per year

that we currently have

due to infectious disease is a historical footnote.

And it's a historical footnote that has been achieved

by radically improved vaccines.

Now standing here today in front of you

at the birthplace of the needle and syringe

a device that's 160 years old

I'm presenting to you an alternative approach

that could really help make that happen

and it's the Nanopatch

with it's attributes of being needle-free, pain-free

the ability for removing the cold chain

and improving the immunogenicity.

Thank you.

(Applause)