Mosquito: Blueprint for a Painess Needle

by jordan | July 18, 2008 at 09:09 am | 269 views | 6 comments

Too clever by half! Scientists are developing a microneedle based on the proboscis of the female mosquito. The goal: painless injections. The difficulty lies in creating a needle that's thin enough to painessly reach a blood vessel but strong enough not to snap off once its gone through the epidermis.
Great news for people who hate getting shots, but who really like bugs.

A female mosquito sucks blood by flexing and relaxing certain muscles in its proboscis. This creates suction (or negative pressure) that draws blood into its mouthparts.

The new biocompatible microneedle, designed by Suman Chakraborty of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur and Kazuyoshi Tsuchiya of Tokai University in Kanagawa is based on the same principle.

In this case, the sucking action is provided by a microelectromechanical pump, which works using a piezoelectric actuator attached to the needle.

The new needle has an inner diameter of around 25 microns and an external diameter of 60 microns, which is about the same size as a mosquito's mouthpart. Its size and the fact that it works by suction, makes it painless. To compare, a conventional syringe needle has an outer diameter of around 900 microns.

New Scientist gets extra points for using "microelectromechanical" in a sentence. (found via boingboing)

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Paschen

at 10:02 on July 18th, 2008

good stuff:

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff.

I read that some time ago in Science News on CGBC. The Idea is great, however we may have to mimic the Bio make up as well, in order to make it work. Somewhat like a needle that Bio syntactical, made of living, bio degradable organism!

azzayindia

at 10:25 on July 18th, 2008

good stuff:

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff.

i thought the saliva of mosquito had anaethetic factors due to which we do not feel pain.

jordan

at 10:43 on July 18th, 2008

As far as I understand, the mosquito saliva is more of an anticoagulant, so that the blood doesn't clot before the mozzie can drink its fill. However, most people are allergic to it, hence the welts.

gerrypopplestone

at 10:59 on July 18th, 2008

good stuff:

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff. I think its quite disgusting what these female mossies get up to. There should be a law against it! And I never believe the docs/researchers when they say "painless"! My experience, just before they stick in the needle, they say - "This wont hurt" and then we scream and they say _ "Oh sorry". But more seriously, my good news on this is the wider use of that Chinese medicine (the Chinese have used the shrub Artemeis..d..... something for thousands of years and now the developed countries are introducing it. Very effectively I hear.

Gerry

PS - You mis-spelt that long word from New Scientist. There's another 'a' somewhere in the middle and a further 'e' towards the end!