I have been lucky to be involved in an interesting and promising project with colleagues from the Technical University of Denmark that aims to develop more efficient and painless micro-needles for medicine injections and blood samples based on inspiration from the natural world – in particular from biting and blood sucking invertebrates such as mosquitoes in particular, but also ticks and bees as well as from porcupine quills and cactus spines. A preliminary overview conference paper with some interesting pilot engineering experiments have just been published in the SPIE Conference Proceedings Bioinspiration, Biomimetics, and Bioreplication 2017. Efforts are currently under way to obtain funding to develop this promising project further.
Lena, T. A., Hesselberg, T., Drakidis, A., Silva, P. and Gomes, S. (2017). Mosquito inspired medical needles. Proc. SPIE 10162, Bioinspiration, Biomimetics, and Bioreplication 2017, 1016208 (April 17, 2017); doi:10.1117/12.2261399.
Abstract
The stinging proboscis in mosquitos have diameters of only 40-100 μm which is much less than the thinnest medical needles and the mechanics of these natural stinging mechanisms have therefore attracted attention amongst developers of injection devises. The mosquito use a range of different strategies to lower the required penetration force hence allowing a thinner and less stiff proboscis structure. Earlier studies of the mosquito proboscis insertion strategies have shown how each of the single strategies reduces the required penetration force. The present paper gives an overview of the advanced set of mechanisms that allow the mosquito to penetrate human skin and also presents other biological mechanisms that facilitate skin penetration. Results from experiments in a skin mimic using biomimetic equivalents to the natural mechanisms are presented. This includes skin stretching, insertion speed and vibration. Combining slow insertion speed with skin tension and slow vibration reduces the penetration force with 40%.
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