Tillverkning av mikronålar för medicinsk tillämpning

Sammanfattning: Transdermal drug delivery, besides painful injections with syringes, has long been associated with small size particle pharmaceuticals, which can diffuse through the skin. This method of drug administration has only been applicable on a small number of drugs, where active molecules are small and delivery time should or can be long. Other drug delivery options are oral administration and injection with hypodermic needles (ordinary hospital syringes). In oral administration the stomach and liver tend to dissolve the drug and the effect becomes more difficult to anticipate, and drug delivery rates difficult to control. Hypodermic needles are used as a mean of drug injection directly into the bloodstream. This method is painful and risks infection due to tissue damage and skin penetration. One way to get a painless non-damaging technique with high delivery rate that still can delivery large molecules is to manufacture an array of microscopic hollow needles and equip them with a pumping unit that delivers the correct amount of drugs. This thesis shows the technique and possibility of manufacture micromachined needles using low cost techniques of Ion Track Technology (radiation of heavy ions creates porous materials), electroless deposition (non-current activated wet chemistry method of depositing metal) and electroplating. It also shows that it is possible to combine the needles with a thermal activated pump (actuator) unit made of paraffin to transport liquid through the needles. Hence the experiments show that microneedles and actuator fulfil the fundamentals towards micro scaled drug administration, transportation of fluid.