Ester Caffarel-Salvador

Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MIT · Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research

It has recently been proposed that the combination of skin barrier impairment using microneedles (MNs) coupled with iontophoresis (ITP) may broaden the range of drugs suitable for transdermal delivery, as well as enabling the rate of delivery to be achieved with precise electronic control. However, no reports exist on the combination of ITP with in...

Gene therapies have conspicuously bloomed in recent years as evidenced by the increasing number of cell-, gene-, and oligo-based approved therapies. These therapies hold great promise for dermatological disorders with high unmet need, for example, epidermolysis bullosa or pachyonychia congenita. Furthermore, the recent clinical success of clustered...

Alternative means for drug delivery are needed to facilitate drug adherence and administration. Microneedles (MNs) have been previously investigated transdermally for drug delivery. To date, drug loading into MNs has been limited by drug solubility in the polymeric blend. We designed a highly drug-loaded MN patch to deliver macromolecules and appli...

Insulin and other injectable biologic drugs have transformed the treatment of patients suffering from diabetes1,2, yet patients and healthcare providers often prefer to use and prescribe less effective orally dosed medications3,4,5. Compared with subcutaneously administered drugs, oral formulations create less patient discomfort⁴, show greater chem...

We hypothesized that ingested warm fluids could act as triggers for biomedical devices. We investigated heat dissipation throughout the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract by administering warm (55°C) water to pigs and identified two zones in which thermal actuation could be applied: esophageal (actuation through warm water ingestion) and extra-esoph...

Delivering fragile drugs to the gut Oral delivery is the simplest and least invasive way to deliver many pharmaceuticals, but many drugs and medications, including insulin, cannot survive passage through the stomach or the gastrointestinal tract. Abramson et al. developed an ingestible delivery vehicle that could self-reorient from any starting pos...

Orally administered devices could enable the systemic uptake of biologic therapeutics by engineering around the physiological barriers present in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Such devices aim to shield cargo from degradative enzymes and increase the diffusion rate of medication through the GI mucosa. In order to achieve clinical relevance, thes...

Drug misuse and dependence is an ever evolving field of study, which has exploded over recent years owing to the advent of the internet. Due to the ever-growing number of young people using drugs recreationally and the privatisation of drug screening and detection services, there is the need to disseminate evidence-based information concerning the...

We describe, for the first time, hydrogel-forming microneedle (MN) arrays for minimally-invasive extraction and quantification of lithium in vitro and in vivo. MN arrays, prepared from aqueous blends of hydrolysed poly(methyl-vinylether-co-maleic anhydride) and crosslinked by poly(ethyleneglycol), imbibed interstitial fluid (ISF) upon skin insertio...

Transdermal drug delivery is an attractive route of drug administration, however there are relatively few marketed transdermal products. To increase delivery across the skin, strategies to enhance skin permeability are widely investigated, with microneedles demonstrating particular promise. Hydrogel-forming microneedles are inserted into the skin,...

We describe, for the first time the use of hydrogel-forming microneedle (MN) arrays for minimally-invasive extraction and quantification of drug substances and glucose from skin in vitro and in vivo. MN prepared from aqueous blends of hydrolysed poly(methyl-vinylether-co-maleic anhydride) (11.1% w/w) and poly(ethyleneglycol) 10,000 daltons (5.6% w/...

Microneedles (MN) offer a simple, minimally invasive and reduced pain alternative to hypodermic needles for drug delivery, including vaccines. Previous studies investigating the use of MN have highlighted the benefit of this technology to facilitate dermal and transdermal drug delivery. Going forward towards commercialization, it is important to co...

Photodynamic therapy involves delivery of a photosensitising drug that is activated by light of a specific wavelength, resulting in generation of highly reactive radicals. This activated species can cause destruction of targeted cells. Application of this process for treatment of microbial infections has been termed "photodynamic antimicrobial chem...

Development of formulations and drug delivery strategies for paediatric use is challenging, partially due to the age ranges within this population, resulting in varying requirements to achieve optimised patient outcomes. Although the oral route of drug delivery remains the preferred option, there are problematic issues, such as difficulty swallowin...

We describe, for the first time, hydrogel-forming microneedle arrays prepared from "super swelling" polymeric compositions. We produced a microneedle formulation with enhanced swelling capabilities from aqueous blends containing 20% w/w Gantrez S-97, 7.5% w/w PEG 10,000 and 3% w/w Na2CO3 and utilised a drug reservoir of a lyophilised wafer-like des...

The emerging field of microneedle-based minimally invasive patient monitoring and diagnosis is reviewed. Microneedle arrays consist of rows of micron-scale projections attached to a solid support. They have been widely investigated for transdermal drug and vaccine delivery applications since the late 1990s. However, researchers and clinicians have...

We characterized hydrogels, prepared from aqueous blends of poly(methyl vinyl ether-co-maleic acid) (PMVE/MA) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG 10,000 Daltons) containing a pore-forming agent (sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO3). Increase in NaHCO3 content increased the equilibrium water content (EWC) and average molecular weight between crosslinks (Mc) of hy...

A plethora of studies have described the in vitro assessment of dissolving microneedle (MN) arrays for enhanced transdermal drug delivery, utilising a wide variety of model membranes as a representation of the skin barrier. However, to date, no discussion has taken place with regard to the choice of model skin membrane and the impact this may have...