Virtually ouch-free: Promising early data on a measles vaccine delivered via sticker
Vaccine experts tend to be a serious bunch, but many are downright giddy about vaccine clinical trial results presented last week at a medical conference in Seattle.
The actual vaccine isn't new — it's the one used to protect against measles and rubella (German measles) and was formulated decades ago. But new results show that the novel delivery system, in development for more than two decades, could be a big step forward, especially for low-income countries.
There's no syringe involved. Rather, there's a small adhesive patch — think Band-Aid — containing tiny microarray "needles" made from the vaccine in dry form, says Steve Damon, CEO of Micron Biomedical, which has been working on the patch for about six years.
The patch is a white plastic disk about the size of
