While production of vaccines has been an issue, their accessibility and cold storage requirements have been a huge setback for these doses to be accessible in remote and areas. However, MIT researchers have demonstrated that this new mobile vaccine printer could soon change things.
Mobile Vaccine Printer
As per Science Daily, the mobile vaccine printer could boost vaccine production by making hundreds of doses daily. Not to mention, because this printer can simply be placed on top of a table, it can be deployed virtually anywhere.
This solution was something that MIT researchers came up with. According to Ana Jaklenec, a research scientist for the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research of MIT, on-demand vaccine production could be possible someday. With such a device, in cases of outbreaks of Ebola, for instance, printers can simply be shipped out and locals can be vaccinated.
The study was reported in the Nature Biotechnology journal.
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Vaccine Storage at Room Temperature
The National News notes that several vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccines, require extremely cold storage. Their non-negotiable storage requirements make it hard to distribute and deploy these shots.
To bypass this hindrance, the researchers aimed to enable on-demand vaccine production. Originally, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, they aimed to create a device that could easily make and distribute vaccines during disease outbreaks, such as that of Ebola.
Rather than making the doses that need to be injected, they opted for a novel delivery method based on thumbnail-sized patches. Within these patches are hundreds of microneedles that carry the vaccine. To apply the patch, it simply needs to be linked to the skin. The microneedle tips would then dissolve and release the vaccine to the host.
John Daristotle, a postdoctoral associate, notes that when the pandemic started, vaccine access and stability prompted them to incorporate mRNA vaccines into these patches.
The ink for printing the vaccine-carrying microneedles comprises RNA vaccine molecules encapsulated inside lipid nanoparticles. This helps the molecules maintain stability even after prolonged periods of time.
Currently, the prototype can make 100 patches within 48 hours. However, the researchers expect that in the future higher versions would have greater capacities.
The new mobile vaccine printer can produce vaccines that can remain stable even when kept at room temperature. This, in turn, eradicates the need for vaccines to be stored in the cold. As a result, vaccines could become more available to the general public.
Vaccine Patch Effectiveness
To assess how stable these vaccine patches are in the long term, scientists first made RNA-containing ink that encodes the luciferase protein. They then applied these patches onto mice after storing them at room temperature (25 degrees Celsius) for half a year. They also stored another batch for a month at 37 degrees Celsius.
The room-temperature-kept patches demonstrated "strong fluorescent responses" when they were applied to mice models. On the contrary, traditional responses induced by intramuscular injections declined as these doses were stored at room temperature.
The researchers also examined the microneedle vaccine by vaccinating two mouse models with two doses at four-week intervals. They, then, gauged the antibody response toward the virus.
They observed that the mice vaccinated with the patch exhibited similar responses to the mice vaccinated with the conventional RNA vax shot.
The scientists also observed similar potent antibody responses when the mice were vaccinated with patches kept at room temperature for three months.
Joseph DeSimone, a chemical engineering and translational medicine professor from Stanford University who did not join the study, explains that the work is quite exciting as it sheds light on the possibilities of on-demand vaccine production. These mobile vaccine printers could enable the wide accessibility of mRNA vaccines.
Though the study focus was COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, the scientists also plan to make other vaccine types, such as those based on inactivated viruses or proteins.
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