Painful Shots Could be a Thing of the Past

BOSTON — Nothing can inspire more fear in a small child than the thought of going to the doctor’s office for a shot, yet with recent advancements in skin-contact drug delivery a visit to the doctor’s office could soon be as quick and painless as putting on a band-aid. Chemical engineers at the Blankschtein research group at MIT have discovered a new way to deliver drugs from the surface of the skin into the bloodstream without the use of needles. The secret to this trick is applying two ultrasound frequencies to temporarily “break up” the surface of the skin.