IIT Bombay develops painless syringe for injecting medicine into human body

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) has developed a shockwave-based needle-free syringe that ensures painless and safe drug delivery with lesser damage to human skin. The developed syringe will also have lower risk of infection, the institute said.

The medical discovery by the research team at IIT Bombay was led by Viran Menezes from the department of aerospace engineering. Under Menezes’s guidance, the team has found a way to deliver drugs without needles by developing a shock syringe, the press release from the institute read.

In their study, published in the journal of biomedical materials and devices, the IIT Bombay researchers compared the effectiveness of drug delivery by a shock syringe versus a regular needle on laboratory rats.

What is a needle-free syringe?

Explaining the technique of giving drugs through needles, Priyanka Hankare, research scholar and author said: “The shock syringe is designed to deliver the medication rapidly. However, if a regular syringe is inserted too quickly or with excessive force, it can cause unnecessary trauma to the skin or underlying tissues,” Priyanka Hankare, research scholar and lead author of both studies, said.

“To minimise tissue damage and ensure consistent and precise drug delivery, the pressure in the shock syringe is continuously monitored and “rigorous testing on tissue simulants (such as synthetic skin) helps to calibrate the force and speed of jet insertion, ensuring safety and comfort,” Hankare added.

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Shedding some light on the research, Hankare said that the syringe could make immunization drives quicker and more efficient for both children and adults. It could prevent the occurrence of bloodborne diseases caused by needle-stick injuries due to mishandling or improper disposal, she added.

Furthermore, “Shock syringes are designed to perform multiple drug delivery shots (such as over 1000 shots tested), offering reliability and cost-effectiveness over time at the expense of nozzle replacement,” she explained further.

How does the new syringe work

Explaining how efficiently the shock syringe delivers the medication, the institute said, “The researchers conducted three different tests in which they injected three different types of drugs into the rats.”

They measured the drug levels in the blood and tissues to monitor drug distribution and absorption in the body using the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method.

“The shock syringe doesn’t rely on piercing the skin with a sharp tip. Instead, it uses high-energy pressure waves (shock waves) that can travel faster than the speed of sound to pierce the skin,” the institute further explained.

These waves, when generated, compress the surrounding medium (such as air or liquid) through which they travel. A similar effect happens during a sonic boom; when an aircraft flies faster than the speed of sound, it creates shock waves that push and disturb the air, the institute said.