Needle-less Vaccines Trial Set To Start A nanopatch can fit on a fingertip. A Brisbane scientist is preparing to begin field trials of an invention expected to get life-saving vaccines to children around the world immeasurably cheaper and years faster than is currently possible. And it's all without the use of needles. Professor Mark Kendall is the inventor of the Nanopatch - a strip smaller than a postage stamp that has thousands of microscopic points, which can inject disease-breaking vaccines into the skin. A microscopic view of the nanopatch. For nine years, Professor Kendall and a team of international researchers have been working on the "needle-less" vaccination in the laboratory. In very simple terms, the technology is designed to deliver a vaccine - that now costs $50 for three injections - to children for about 50 cents without a needle in sight. In October, University of Queensland Professor Kendall will test the fruits of his labour when he begins field trials. Professor Mark Kendall. Photo: Jeremy Patten ""We will be going into the Papua New Guinea Highlands later this year for a follow-up usability trial,"" he said. Professor Kendall said this trial was likely to happen in October. The full clinical trials - the step after the field and usability trials - will most likely happen in two stages in Brisbane and again in Papua New Guinea within 18 months. The research is being done in two strands - for the developed world and for the developing world - with research in both areas piggy-backing from each other. The nanopatch resembles Star Trek technology. "To the naked eye it looks like a patch," Professor Kendall said. But if we look under a microscope, we see thousands of projections that we dry-coat vaccine to. These are invisible to the naked eye, you really have to look under a microscope to see, and then we apply the patch to the skin. Those little projections breach through the tough outer layer of the skin and deliver the vaccines, directly to thousands of immune cells. The result is more efficient, pain-free medicine. "It could be argued that needles are holding back how well the vaccines could work because it is putting them into the wrong place, it is putting them into muscle," Professor Kendall said. If you put them in the right place, at the right time, you can get them to work better. Professor Kendall said the nanopatch vaccines would be significantly cheaper than their syringe-delivered counterparts because the patches did not need to be refrigerated. Source: Rolex/Proudfoot Productions Already, the World Health Organisation expressed fears that a large proportion of vaccines are not working effectively because vaccines are not being kept cold in third world countries, according to Professor Kendall. "We have proven with the Nanopatch you do not need refrigeration," he said. And our tests with mice show you don't need as much dose. Straight up, you have ruled out two of the largest barriers to the roll-out of vaccines in the developing world. Professor Kendall will discuss his research at a forum at Brisbane's Customs House on Thursday night.