Whether it’s for a flu shot or giving blood, the prick of a needle can be the most uncomfortable part of a doctor’s office visit.

Over the past five years, Roger Narayan, a professor in biomedical engineering, along with other colleagues and graduate students, have researched an alternative type of needle that causes little-to-no pain.

“Microneedles are devices that can be used to create pores in the top-most layer of the epidermis and allow drugs to reach deeper layers of the skin and reach the blood stream,” Narayan said.

The smaller dimensions of the needle allow the penetration to cause less pain, according to Narayan.

“It would not penetrate the skin as equally as a dimensional needle, and so there’ll be less pain. In many cases, there’s no pain that’s associated with microneedles,” Narayan said. “In addition, the devices can be incorporated with complex structures. They can be incorporated with pumps and sensors and can be used to detect a medical condition and treat it.”

The microneedle is hollow and can essentially be used as a mini-hypodermic syringe.

“You can make a solid needle which just penetrates the skin and delivers a drug once, or you can have these hollow devices which just basically provide conduits for delivery of an agent over time,” Narayan said.

Ryan Boehm, a graduate student in biomedical engineering, has worked with the microneedle research since he began graduate school. He said standard needles are much larger and are generally used for delivery into blood vessels or tissue at a much larger scale.

“With the microneedles, we’re able to penetrate into the skin for more direct delivery or blood sampling or other applications,” Boehm said. “They also provide the opportunity to be portable. It can be used out in the field and not necessarily in the doctor’s office of a trained professional.”

Boehm said some of his work was with micro-molding of microneedles.

“We take these molds made out of silicone rubber… to make microrays to polymerize the material and make these small microneedle ray structures,” Boehm said. “We use a laser system for a process that’s called two-photon polymerization and we’re able to direct the laser light to harden the material and make the microneedle rays at very specific geometries.”

Boehm said the researchers have been collaborating with a group in Hannover, Germany, at a laser center called Laser Zentrum Hannover.

“They have a lot of expertise using the two-photon polymerization system. I think a lot of our work in collaboration with them has been novel compared to some of the other techniques that have been used for fabrication of these micro-scale devices,” Boehm said.

Narayan said this research on microneedles is unique because they can manipulate the geometry and the properties of the device with a lot more precision than microneedles created through other techniques.

“We can manipulate the geometry and we have a good selection of materials for these devices as well. We can essentially tune both the material and geometry to suit the particular application,” Narayan said.

The researchers are currently looking at applications for treatment of a variety of chronic medical conditions, Narayan said.

“In some cases, for something such as cancer or diabetes, the use of a microneedle may allow someone to treat themselves at home instead of having to go and seek assistance from a medical profession during treatment,” Narayan said.

According to Narayan, the largest use of microneedles that has been translated to commercial application has been in vaccine delivery.

“There are several companies that have developed solid microneedle devices and hollow microneedle devices for delivery of a vaccine through the skin,” Narayan said. “In addition, there’s a company that’s using a microneedle device for treatment of acne and dermatologic conditions.”

Ashley McClelland, a freshman in human biology, said she hates needles because she had to get many shots every week over the summer. She said she changed her future profession so she wouldn’t have to work with needles.

“Painless needles exist? That’s fantastic,” McClelland said. “I think more people will be willing to get shots. People are so scared to give blood or get shots because they remember what it felt like whenever they were a kid.”

Boehm said he does not know if microneedles will necessarily replace hypodermic needles, but they provide some benefits that hypodermic needles can’t.