Vaccine delivery: Nanopatch‐Targeted Skin Vaccination against West Nile Virus and Chikungunya Virus in Mice (Small 16/2010)

The cover image shows the Nanopatch, a densely packed microneedle array, and individual microneedles. The microneedles are shown alone, after dry-coating with vaccine (red) and following the delivery of vaccine into the skin. The Nanopatch delivers dry-coated vaccines directly to antigen-presenting cells (green) by puncturing the dry outer layers of skin (gray). The vaccine coating dissolves and is released into the viable epidermis and dermis, which are both rich with antigen-presenting cells. These antigen-presenting cells are stimulated by Nanopatch application and the delivered vaccine. Immunization with inactivated whole Chikungunya virus vaccine and a DNA-delivered attenuated West Nile virus vaccine resulted in sustained and protective immune response. These data show that the Nanopatch is a robust and versatile vaccine delivery system for fighting diseases. For more information, please read the Full Paper “Nanopatch-Targeted Skin Vaccination against West Nile Virus and Chikungunya Virus in Mice” by M. A. F. Kendall and co-workers, beginning on page 1776.