While looking for diagnostic problems, we decided to focus on a less painful way of diagnosing allergies.
Currently, there are three ways to diagnose allergies: skin prick test, interdermal test, and skin patch test. To do a skin prick test a drop of an allergen solution is placed on the skin and then a needle prick is applied allowing for the solution to enter the skin. Similarly, an interdermal test is done by injecting an allergen solution into the skin. A skin path is when a pad with an allergen solution is placed on the skin. For all there are two ways to determine an allergy, a blood test where the concentration of antibodies is calculated and a skin reaction test where the size of the reaction is measured.
Our first idea was to create a microneedle interdermal patch that attaches to the skin and after a certain time period is removed and the results can be seen on the skin. This idea however was found to be currently patented.
Our second and current idea is to combine the patch idea with a stamp. Therefore the allergen can be injected into the skin using microneedles on a stamp. This will take less time to administer and can be used on children. A similar idea currently in testing is called a Vacc-Stamp which uses microneedle vaccines on babies.
We are currently still developing this idea more.
No comments:
Post a Comment