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A laser that generates a high-speed jet of liquid to push medicines into the skin could one day give people painless, needle-free injections.

Pankaj Rohilla and Jeremy Marston at Texas Tech University tested their laser-powered liquid jet on skin-like material and pig skin, with promising results. They say it could be an alternative to conventional injections, provided they can show it works on human skin too.

The device focuses a laser beam at a liquid in a glass tube. A small portion of the liquid rapidly heats and vaporises, forming a bubble. This generates enough pressure to force a jet of liquid into the skin at a speed of up to 300 metres per second.

The jet is less than a tenth of a millimetre wide, which is designed to minimise the impact of the fast-moving liquid on the skin and prevent pain and bruising.

In trials, the liquid jet penetrated 4 millimetres into a skin-like gel 鈥� deep enough to deliver drugs under the skin鈥檚 surface. When tested on pig skin, the jet reached the tissue just under the skin, where intradermal injections are delivered.

鈥淭hese results were very exciting for us,鈥� says Rohilla. 鈥淭he next step is to do injections on human cadaver skin.鈥�

The new technique would benefit those with a needle phobia, estimated to be as many as , and lower the risk of needle-stick injuries for healthcare workers, says Rohilla.

As well as being painful, conventional injections have many limitations that needle-free ones would avoid, says Rohilla. For example, the team鈥檚 initial tests suggest the injection would also work with very thick liquids, which will be vital if the technology is used to deliver DNA vaccines 鈥� vaccines that use DNA from viruses or bacteria to stimulate the immune system. These are thicker than other types of vaccine and so require more force to inject them into skin with a syringe, he says.

The technology has great potential, says Guido Bolognesi at Loughborough University in the UK. But to work well, the technique 鈥渕ust be capable to account for variability in skin among patients and ensure consistency in the dosage of drug injected through the skin鈥�, he says.

The research was due to be presented on 3 March at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Colorado, but the conference was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

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