Gold and Helium Combine for Needle-Free Injections 74
Mr. Jaggers writes "U.K. biotech outfit, PowderMed Ltd., has developed a new method to deliver vaccine using an injector powered by concentrated helium gas. They enclose fragments of virus DNA in tiny gold particles, and use the injector to introduce particles into the body subdermally. Evidently, this has been in the works for some time, but is now ready for human clinical tests. Oh, and this is supposed to be used experimentally to target the H5N1 avian flu, which is also cool, I suppose."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Gold? (Score:1)
Re:Gold? (Score:4, Funny)
Mom: What's the hold up? Why aren't you kids ready for school?
Kids: DigiShaman is hogging the bathroom again. Panning for gold.
DigiShaman [muffled, behind door]: Eureka!!
Re:Gold? (Score:1)
Re:Gold? (Score:5, Interesting)
OOooOOOOoo (Score:3, Funny)
Reminiscent of Star Trek?
Re:OOooOOOOoo (Score:2)
Or the draft.
Re:OOooOOOOoo (Score:2)
I wasn't drafted, but I had to get the innoculations with the "air guns" while going down an assembly line when I went into the service. For my boney arms (at the time), it hurt only as much as a needle would have, but one of the people administering the shot didn't maintain skin contact for the full duration of the injection. The result was a large enough "hole" in my arm that bled heavily for a few minutes.
Of course, who do you think the sergeants blamed for that happening?
Re:OOooOOOOoo (Score:2)
Re:OOooOOOOoo (Score:2, Informative)
Re:OOooOOOOoo (Score:2)
Much better than mercury, no?
Maybe I'm to cynical (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, we know what the side effects of the polio vaccination are so maybe that's a better trial for this. It would be truly awful if we created a SuperFlu by playing around with this.
LK
Typo in previous subject. (Score:2, Funny)
LK
Re:Maybe I'm to cynical (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe I'm too cynical (Score:1)
More practitioners (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More practitioners (Score:2, Informative)
Re:More practitioners (Score:5, Informative)
The reason Paramedics drop lines is less to introduce drugs but to add fluid volume, saline or blood. You can't do that intramuscularly, or without a needle. Once you have the line inserted as a way of adding volume, it's an easy way to give drugs (and there are admittedly drugs that are intended for intravascular use instead of IM), but a needle-less IM system wouldn't replace most IV insertions.
Unless you could find some way to continuously pump fluids into a vein without a catheter in place to keep it open, but I don't think anyone has proposed a needleless sytem that does that.
What next? Discovering Polio vaccine? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_gun [wikipedia.org]
I'd tell the submitter where to shove such 'new methods', but it appears that has already been done:
Chen et al. Immunity obtained by gene-gun inoculation of a rotavirus DNA vaccine to the abdominal epidermis or anorectal epithelium.Vaccine. 1999 Aug 6;17(23-24):3171-6
Re:What next? Discovering Polio vaccine? (Score:2)
Influenza is an Orthomyxovirus (Score:1)
But maybe, they are using DNA that corresponds to the viral RNA.
Re:Influenza is an Orthomyxovirus (Score:5, Informative)
Since RNA has absolutely no chance for to survive or integrate without the viral enzymes, so gene-guns have to use DNA.
Re:Influenza is an Orthomyxovirus (Score:1)
Re:Influenza is an Orthomyxovirus (Score:1)
RNA has no chance to survive....take off every telomere for great justice...
(sorry, I just had to say it)
I wonder if its painful? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I wonder if its painful? (Score:1)
Hell I'd even pay a few extra bucks for this method even if it was more painful. Pain I can stand, the idea of something foreign and large entering my body is another story.
Hell yes - the military uses something like this (Score:5, Interesting)
It hurts like Hell. It leaves a blister or welt, if you are lucky.
Don't flinch. If you move, the device cuts a slot. You need stiches. Then they try again. Remember, don't flinch.
Such devices are being eliminated. Back splatter (tiny droplets of blood) creates a risk of disease transmission. It's also not nice how the device tends to drive skin bacteria into you, more so than a needle would.
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:1)
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:2)
(mostly over it now, giving myself 2x a week injections)
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:2)
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:5, Interesting)
Even worse though, was a friend that was in a car wreck and they took his eyes out, again fully concious, to remove pieces of windscreen. He told me that it was very strange to be looking at his own chest like that while his eyeballs were on his cheeks.
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:1)
Hahahahaha, man, that made me cringe reading it. X0
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:3, Insightful)
... and if he hadn't posted thw windscreen part, he would have had a lot of people going.
hint for the next time - magnets work better.
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:2)
I really wanted to sleep tonight. You just fucked it up for me.
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:2)
Thanks. I never thought of that :\
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:2)
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:1)
If you had stayed in your 30, depending on your MOS you might have been effected by a stoploss. Nothing says thank you for your 30 years like "stick around a few more until we end this war".
Moving along, Aye aye sir.
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:2)
Fast forward to fall 90. My cousin got drafted in 61 and was then a full Colonel in the Army. Wanted to go to Desert Shield, Army says no, you were just Attache in Tokyo (intelligence officer) you know to much and will never b
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:2)
Re:Hell yes - the military uses something like thi (Score:1)
Yellow Fever vaccination was particularly memorable as it made me really sick for just 24 hrs., then I was fine. They told us not to move as we were getting the shot as it would rip the skin and be much more painful.
Re:I wonder if its painful? (Score:2)
Re:I wonder if its painful? (Score:2, Informative)
Injector pens like this have existed for over 15 years. I currently use a MediJector Vision. Once you've purchased the injector pen, there is an additional cost for the adaptors to go on the insulin vials. You end up using about 10% less insulin per shot. I had one of the first ones produced back in 1990 and haven't had to do a needle injection since then. It feels like a quick pinch.
My shots aren't coated in gold, though.
Google just gives me shopping links, but you can find more deta
Star Trek pushes us forward again? (Score:1, Redundant)
Can anyone tell me how close this is to the Hypo-sprays (sp?) from the Star Trek world? Do you still have to place is strategically, or is it a general point-and-click interface?
First comm badges. Then hypo-sprays. Warp speed, here we come!
Re:Star Trek pushes us forward again? (Score:1)
Isn't it the Zefram Cochran's warp drive first? Then First Contact by those dull Vulcans (actually Borg are first, followed by Enterprise).
Re:Star Trek pushes us forward again? (Score:2)
Old Trick (Score:2, Informative)
Using them on the human cells is a logical step, but applicability is going to be rather narrow.
Clinical trials... (Score:2)
Air bubbles? (Score:2)
Re:Air bubbles? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Air bubbles? (Score:2)
Re:Air bubbles in IV fluid lines (Score:2)
Re:Air bubbles? (Score:3, Informative)
Because it's no where near the blood stream. This one is subdermal (just under the skin) not into a vein. For the vein, it would be an IV.
Re:Air bubbles? (Score:2)
Re:Air bubbles? (Score:2)
' thought we HAD needle-free injection systems... (Score:2)
It seems like decades ago when the first needle-free injecting systems
were announced. Didn't they work out?
What're the great new advantages here, not for gold producers but for
patients and/or medical establishments who fund the injections?
Gold injected breast implants? (Score:2)
Dr Who - Cybermen Vaccination (Score:1)
Re:Needle-Free is 30+ year-old tech (Score:1, Redundant)
new??? (Score:2)
Prior Art (Score:2)
Biorad Gene Gun (Score:1)
As has been pointed out by many others here already, the PowderJect device is hardly new as well.