Dr. Yang Hyun Yun
Imagine a new form of chemotherapy delivery for melanoma, one that looks like a bandage-type patch. University of Akron researchers are devising a system to deliver drugs through microneedles — created through 3-D printing — to treat skin cancer. The finished product would take the form of an adhesive patch, customized according to patients’ prescribed dosages and the size and shape of their cancerous growths.
Yang Hyun Yun, associate professor of biomedical engineering, and Jae-Won Choi, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, are seeking National Science Foundation funding to advance their development of this technology. Ultimately, they hope to put custom 3-D printers in the medical offices of dermatologists, oncologists and hematologists who treat melanoma patients.
Dr. Jae-Won Choi
Created through 3-D printing, a microneedle array, built on a flexible substrate, would be applied to and remain on a patient’s cancerous growth until the drugs are absorbed.
“We want to develop a 3-D printing device that can make customized drug-delivery devices that are patient-specific,” Yun explains.
Physicians with the specialized 3-D printers could electronically input prescriptions according to the physiology of a patient’s cancerous growth.
The real-time, on-the-spot-created drug delivery method would allow patients to begin chemotherapy during the same appointment as their cancer diagnosis.
Media contact: Denise Henry, henryd@uakron.edu.