Future Tech: Liquid Injections

Researchers at MIT have developed a method for giving injections that doesn’t involve jabbing you with a pointy piece of metal.

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re you one of the many trypanophobes out there? Do you look away when the phlebotomist draws blood because you can’t stand the sight of a needle piercing your skin? Many people are afraid of injections, but for some, they’re part of everyday life. Now there's good news for the needle averse—researchers at MIT have developed a method for giving injections that doesn’t involve jabbing you with a pointy piece of metal.

Using an ultrasonic liquid injector could mean no more track marks, not that drug addicts would ever use it. We’re quite sure that will never, ever happen.

Using something called a Lorentz-force actuator, which MIT describes as “a small powerful magnet surrounded by a coil of wire that’s attached to a piston inside a drug ampule,” MIT’s device produces a force that shoots an extremely thin and powerful jet of liquid that goes through skin at the speed of sound.

The device can deliver a range of doses at any depth, which is something current jet-injection systems can not do. The pressure can also be altered, so that it can be used to administer shots to kids, whose skin is not as difficult to breach.

“If you are afraid of needles and have to frequently self-inject, compliance can be an issue,” says MIT research scientist Catherine Hogan. “We think this kind of technology gets around some of the phobias that people may have about needles.”

Learn more about this technological breakthrough in the video below.