Gu Zhen's team at the School of Pharmacy of Zhejiang University invented the "spray printer": printing personalized patches with medicine as ink

Recently, Professor Gu Zhen's team of Zhejiang University, Professor Huang Peng of Shenzhen University and others have cooperated to develop a "spray printer" to print personalized drug delivery patches with medicine as ink for local treatment of
skin diseases.
The paper, "Printable personalized drug delivery patch for the topical therapy of skin diseases," was published online in
Matter.

Skin disease is one of the most common of all human health problems, is the general term for all diseases that occur in the epidermis, dermis, subcutaneous tissue, there are currently known skin diseases as many as thousands, seriously affecting the work, life and physical and mental health
of billions of people around the world.
Over the past few decades, topical therapies, in which drugs are delivered locally to the skin's site of action, have been the preferred route of dermatological treatment and have attracted attention
for their convenience, low side effects, and low cost.
However, these drugs often cause side effects on the normal skin around the lesion, such as itching, peeling, tingling, burning, erythema, rash, dermatitis, allergies, discoloration, etc
.
In addition, the control of local drug dosage is also very important, insufficient dose often leads to poor efficacy, and too high a dose may cause serious toxic side effects
.
Therefore, how to accurately control the location, range, dose, etc.
of drug release in a personalized way has become a key challenge
in the current development of local drug delivery systems.

Schematic diagram of personalized dosing patch preparation and use

In response to this problem, the research team developed a personalized precision drug delivery system based on printable patches to achieve precise drug delivery and precise control
of local therapeutic doses in the treatment of skin diseases.
They use medicine as ink and directly fill the drug solution into the piezoelectric ink cartridge of the inkjet printer; The printable patch as "paper" is composed of three thin polymer films, prepared layer by layer by spin coating technology
.
The base material is FEP, which has the characteristics of high transparency, non-stickiness and excellent mechanical properties, which provides mechanical support for printable patches; The protective layer is a PLGA film with a porous structure, which can play the role of waterproof and breathable; The water/oil-soluble polymer HPC has good skin adhesion as a drug carrier layer and can be used for the printing and delivery
of various drugs.
Subsequently, printable patches and drug solutions were replaced with traditional printing paper and ink, and the improved inkjet printer was guided to print drugs based on the analysis of the personalized imaging results of the lesion site by the dermoscopy
.
It can personalize drug patches according to the location, extent, distribution and severity of lesions, deliver drugs to specific lesions at the optimal local dose, and ultimately achieve personalized and precise local treatment
of skin diseases.
This personalized drug delivery system based on printable drug patches is suitable for the printing of a variety of substances, such as pharmaceutical preparations, macromolecules, cells, water-soluble compounds, oil-soluble compounds, etc.
, and can potentially be used for the local treatment of a variety of skin diseases, such as dyspigmenta, vitiligo, skin cancer, epidermal infections, skin trauma, etc
.

Personalized and printed drug patches based on the location, extent, distribution, and severity of the lesion

The materials selected for this study are biocompatible, environmentally friendly, and the preparation process of personalized printable drug patches is simple, easy to operate, does not require complex and expensive equipment, and is easy to achieve industrial production
.
The research team has applied for relevant invention patents and is actively promoting the application of relevant clinical trials to use this "private customized" patch for clinical
use as soon as possible.

Original link: https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
matt.
2022.
09.
018