A child could receive all vaccines with a single injection thanks to this new technology developed by a scientific team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The system stores vaccines in microscopic capsules that drop the initial dose, as well as additional doses on specific days after injection.
Microparticles
The researchers designed a new type of microparticles comparable to a coffee capsule: these tiny containers are filled with the various vaccines and sealed with a lid that can break and release their contents at precise moments .
In one of the experiments with mice, the scientists found that the substances were released exactly at 9, 20 and 41 days after the injection. As MIT researcher Robert Langer explains:
For the first time, we can create a library of tiny vaccine particles, each programmed to be released at a precise and predictable time, so that people can potentially receive a single injection that would already include multiple boosts. This could have a huge impact for patients around the world, particularly in developing countries.