Smart plaster to control drug release

Dan Rogers - 19 Feb 2010

A smart textile plaster that can electrically control the delivery of an embedded drug has been developed by Cetemmsa.

The Spanish smart textile centre worked with cosmetic materials firm Infinitec Activos on a €2.2million project that concluded in February 2010. The project culminated in the creation of a demonstrator: a textile plaster containing electronics to activate the delivery of a peptide.

The researchers have put forward plans to prepare the smart plaster for commercial manufacture, by integrating the electronic functionality directly into the textile, rather than needing to piece the product together as layers.

Printing

Laia Francesch, manager of the smart materials and devices printed electronics lab at Cetemmsa, comments: 'We're still working on how to go to the printing of the electronics, to integrate the circuitry into the patch, or a plastic substrate.'

The next development project to make the plaster production-ready is set to be confirmed later this year.

The smart plaster is programmed to heat the plaster via the electric circuit. This stimulates the peptide-containing capsule in the plaster to open, releasing some of its contents. When the signal ceases, the patch cools down and the capsule closes again. This allows for regular doses to be released via a patch, rather than the continual release offered by non-electric patches.

Francesch adds: 'Software has been developed in the project to programme the heating of the patch. In the future, a patch could be programmed with software, or even by wireless signal.'

Wireless

Francesch believes that the technology would let healthcare professionals control some patients' medication centrally via a wireless system.

Should further research be confirmed later in 2010, the research team will begin addressing how to integrate the circuitry and battery into the textile of the patch.

'We want to be able to print layers that would be more convenient to integrate,' Francesch explains.

The project, which began in 2009, was originally considering opportunities for similar functionality to be added to clothing. However, the technical challenges made a patch a more straightforward endeavour.

Francesch notes: 'We were talking more of bringing this to other wearables, but then we realised that there were more difficulties with doing this than we thought.'

The feasibility of integrating electronics for health-related clothing was something Kunigunde Cherenack, senior research fellow at the ETH Wearable Computing Lab, noted when discussing her work on clothing for paraplegic patients with +Plastic Electronics.

However, Cetemmsa is developing various smart textile technologies and Francesch believes that the knowledge gained in these other project.

'Our original plans for this project are not out of our future scope at Cetemmsa,' she adds.