Polymer Patches May Enable Effective DNA Vaccines 83
Zothecula writes "Taking a two-month-old in for vaccination shots and watching them get stuck with six needles in rapid succession can be painful for child and parent alike. If the work of an MIT team of researchers pans out, those needles may be thing of the past thanks to a new dissolvable polymer film that allows the vaccination needle to be replaced with a patch. This development will not only make vaccinations less harrowing, but also allow for developing and delivering vaccines for diseases too dangerous for conventional techniques."
The patch was designed with delivering DNA-based vaccines in mind. Thus far efforts to use DNA to generate more robust and safe vaccines has failed thanks to the immune system destroying them; the polymer film embeds itself in your skin and slowly dissolves, protecting the DNA in the process.
A Spartan existence (Score:4, Funny)
My kids only eat what they can kill. Since we live in the city, it's tough on them (and on the neighborhood pigeons), but they're going to true Nietzschean superpeople when I'm done with them!
one big problem (Score:2, Funny)
I'm sure the polymer causes autism. I just know it.
Re:This will be abused... (Score:2, Funny)
While I believe this is a good thing for evolution, I know it will be abused.
If all it takes to pick up an object with a limb is an opposable thumb, this will surely be abused by people.
Instead of picking up a banana, one could pick up a deadly rock. The appendage could also be used to deliver a choke where they would no longer require both limbs. You'd get grappling.
How easy would it be to make a pointy stick. You don't have to get as close to people to strike any more just don't wear thin hide.