Image credit – Langer Lab
It is safe to say that no one really relishes the idea of getting injections, even as adults, so it is understandable why children typically kick up a huge fuss when it’s time for their vaccinations. This usually involves several trips to the doctors over a period of time, which means multiple struggles for parents and basically everyone involved.
However it seems that researchers at MIT have come up with a way to include multiple vaccinations within a single injection. This means that in the future, kids will only have to endure a single injection but at the same time ultimately reap the benefit of multiple vaccines. How is this possible? Essentially each dose of the vaccine will be released at a specific time, and this is achieved through the use of PLGA which is a biocompatible polymer that is found in implants and prosthetics.
The PLGA will be used to create microparticles that resemble tiny coffee cups and have also been designed to degrade at specific times, meaning that while the vaccines will be delivered into the body at the same time, some might only be released at a later date, like when the child is slightly older.
According to Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, “We are very excited about this work because, for the first time, we can create a library of tiny, encased vaccine particles, each programmed to release at a precise, predictable time, so that people could potentially receive a single injection that, in effect, would have multiple boosters already built into it. This could have a significant impact on patients everywhere, especially in the developing world where patient compliance is particularly poor.”