Display of innovation in science

CONSUMER HEALTH:A new solution – the Immupatch – may help tackle the logistical difficulties in delivering vaccines safely and effectively. This is just one of the innovations on show at the Big Ideas exhibition next week, writes CLAIRE O'CONNELL

WHAT’S THE best way to get potentially life-saving vaccines to the people who need them? How can you reduce the misery and cost of hospital- acquired infections? And can you predict whether someone will develop life-threatening complications after surgery?

These are among the big questions to be tackled by innovators at a conference in Dublin next week.

High on any list of global health problems is the logistical nightmare of delivering vaccines safely and effectively to people in the developing world, where issues such as transport, storage, healthcare provision and waste can make it difficult to use conventional needle-and-syringe delivery approaches.

Instead, researchers in Cork are developing a small transdermal patch that travels well, needs no cossetting in a fridge and delivers the medicine simply by being placed on the skin then peeled off.

The Immupatch addresses many issues around vaccine logistics, explains immunologist Dr Anne Moore of University College Cork’s School of Pharmacy.

“Delivering vaccines basically comes down to trucks and needles,” she says. “There’s no point in having a good vaccine if you can’t get it to people, and then into the right place in the body.”

In their solution, the portable and easy-to-use patch uses tiny “microneedles” etched into its surface to deliver vaccine into the skin. It’s by no means the first transdermal vaccine patch to be developed, but their one-step approach has proven more effective than the conventional needle and syringe in preclinical trials with commercial vaccines, as well as one against malaria.

“We never thought it might get a better response, we were very surprised when that happened,” says Moore, who collaborates with colleagues at UCC, Tyndall National Institute and the University of Oxford.

The transdermal approach could ultimately smooth the path for vaccine programmes in remote and developing areas, minimise problems of waste needles and even improve uptake among the needle-phobic in the developed world, she adds.

Reducing disease has also been the aim of research at Dublin Institute of Technology, which has developed an anti- microbial coating that’s activated by the flick of a light switch.

The idea is to put the bug- killing coating on surfaces in healthcare settings and so help reduce the spread of hospital- acquired infections like MRSA and C difficile. That’s according to Dr John Colreavy, director at the Crest centre in DIT, which is spinning out a company, Radical, to commercialise the technology.

The steriliser works when indoor light activates the coating and results in the formation of a chemical radical. That activated molecule acts like a buzz-saw to cleave and inactivate bugs or viruses that come into contact with it. “It’s that radical just on the surface that does the business of sterilising,” he says.

The microbe-killing coating is not designed to replace cleaning in healthcare settings, but it can act as a backup to tackle infectious agents lurking on surfaces like doors, walls and worktops, says Colreavy. “It is a second line of defence after cleaning, so that a biofilm doesn’t start to develop,” he explains.

Another approach to dealing with infections is to identify those who are most likely to react badly to them. That’s the goal of Precysion, a technology that aims to single out patients at risk of developing sepsis, a rare but potentially life-threatening condition that can develop rapidly in patients who get infections following surgery.

“This is a diagnostics kit that we are trying to develop,” explains life sciences consultant Paul McMahon, who is working with Trinity College Dublin on the approach.

At present, the focus in healthcare settings is on dealing with sepsis as it arises, but testing patients for the condition can take days, during which their condition can deteriorate rapidly, explains McMahon, adding that worldwide around 4,000 people die each day from the complication and many others don’t ever fully recover.

Instead Precysion’s idea is to look at patients before any problem starts and track biochemical changes or “biomarkers” that indicate their systems could react badly to an infection. Low-risk patients could move to a less resource-intensive ward while high-risk individuals could be managed pro- actively, notes McMahon.

“Currently all of the tests are for people who are developing sepsis,” he says.

“But our approach is trying to understand someone’s predisposition prior to the onset of sepsis and so the channel of treatment is better understood, rather than trying to react in an emergency situation.”

So far, the work has identified key changes in the inflammatory profiles of patients who are prone to sepsis, and the team is now developing a kit to assess patients easily.

• The Big Ideas Showcase, which is organised by Enterprise Ireland, runs at Croke Park next Tuesday, October 13th, and will highlight commercial opportunities emerging from Ireland's higher education institutes in the areas of life science and food, ICT and industrial technologies.