Skin Cells Studied For Future Needle-Free Vaccination

Vaccinations play an essential role in helping to prevent the onset of certain illnesses.

Now, new findings published in the journal Experimental Dermatology examine how to stimulate the skin's immune response by applying a needle-free vaccination. 

"For 10 years, researchers at Charité-Berlin and UPMC-Paris have been working together on how to use the skin immune system to develop a new, non-invasive vaccination method," said Annika Vogt, a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Dermatology & Allergy (Charité-Berlin, Germany) and UPMC University Paris, Sorbonne Universités, (France). "In this study, we show how a painless method helps such vaccines cross the skin. The method 'wakes up' skin immune cells so that they are ready to catch the vaccine and generate an immune response."

Researchers first made this discovery when they applied the response to the skin surface 200 nm particles that reflect the size of viruses and engineered particular vaccines, as well as microscopy to compare the penetration of the particles.

They soon discovered that the CSS method helped to enhance penetration of the particles to the deeper skin layers, including hair follicles and activated skin dendritic cells that are critically involved in the orchestration of the skin immune system.

With future studies, researchers believe that this novel idea could be used for mass vaccination. Furthermore, they are hopeful that if combined with conventional injections, such skin vaccination could help in generating broader and more powerful responses to fight severe, chronic viral infections, including HIV.

"If we learn how to better reach and communicate with skin immune cells from the outside, we would be able to develop new tools for the treatment of allergies, inflammatory skin diseases or skin cancer," the researchers concluded.