The Self Healing Needle Plugs Its Own Puncture Wound After an Injection

Hypodermic Syringe – Eliminating Fear of Needles

Scientists have now come up with hypodermic syringe, thereby eliminating the fear of needles which some of us tend to have regarding needles. This hypodermic syringe tends to seal the hole it leaves behind after it has been removed. The needle is said to be coated in a film that physically plugs the gap left in a vein when it is removed. This breakthrough has come from an improbable quarter, the mussel.

The ability of the shellfish to stick to a surface in the wet has inspired the adhesive material utilised on the syringe. This discovery would be helpful in preventing a huge variety of issues due to bleeding under the skin. Those who would be benefiting from this discovery would be people whose blood does not clot correctly. These comprise of people suffering from haemophilia, diabetes and those with the advanced stage of cancer.

According to the authors from the Korean Institute of Technology, the bleeding triggered by hypodermic syringes when removed also tends to induce a `certain degree of psychological fear’. Moreover the bleeding could also cause bruises which could prevent further therapeutic injections. Several routine surgical operations as in the case of plastic surgery need to be avoided with people suffering from blood clotting problems if they tend to suffer uncontrolled bleeding.

Haemostatic Needles

Substitutes to syringes seem to be few, with the options of micro needle patches and oral and nasal delivery. The main obstacle in overcoming by the team had been in getting the sealant gel to grip the needle and thereafter to completely seal the puncture area on removal.

The team utilised polymers known as catecholics in order to overcome this issue which had been motivated by those used by mussels to grip the rocks. The polymer film on the needle is transformed to an adhesive thin gel like substance which shows instant self-sealing of the pricked vessels, which results in total prevention of bleeding for normal as well as haemophilia animal models.

The authors ended that they had developed haemostatic needles which are capable of completely preventing blood loss following tissue puncture, thereby showing significant promise for use in patients with conditions affecting haemostatic and those with infectious blood-borne diseases.

Sir Christopher Wren – Unlikely Pioneer in Syringe

The word syringe comes from Greek mythology. Syrinx, a chaste nymph had been chased to the edge of the waters and disguised herself as water reeds. Galen, the famous Greek surgeon had known about syringes and being inspired by how the snakes tend to transmit venom and how they were used to administer ointments though not intravenously.

Sir Christopher Wren, the architect in the 17th century, an unlikely pioneer in syringes carried out experiments on dogs utilising goose quills and pigs bladders to inject them with opium and wine. Alexander Wood, Scottish surgeon of Edinburg, has been credited with pioneering the new hypodermic syringe with the combination of a hollow steel needle together with a proper syringe in injecting morphine in a human.

He together with his wife had been addicted to injecting morphine and his wife had apparently been the first person to die of a drug overdose.