 |
Jeff's Project Page |
 |
Intern:Jeff Katrencik, University of Pennsylvania
Mentor: Joy Schramm
Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Samir Mitragotri
Department: Chemical Engineering |
INVESTIGATION OF SKIN FAILURE MECHANISMS BY JET INJECTION
Jet injections were introduced in the 1940’s for use in mass inoculations and in the home. Despite the device’s advantage of having no needles, the use of the traditional hypodermic needle has dominated the marketplace. Since little is known about the mechanisms of skin penetration and drug dispersion with jet injections, the goal of my research was to develop models for these characteristics. To do so, we jet injected Sulforhodamine B dye into clear polyacrylamide gels in order to obtain characteristics of the jet injection, such as the dispersion dimensions of the dye in the gel, the hole depth created by the jet, and rate of hole depth into the gel. The general shape of the dispersion is circular with an introductory channel. As the Young’s modulus of the gel increases, the shape of the dispersion is truncated. The total penetration of the jet into the gel is a function of time and mechanical properties, as well as of velocity and radius of the jet. We present a mathematical model for the hole depth in polyacrylamide gels as a function of Young’s modulus of the injected gel and elapsed time of injection. These models will be used to predict the mathematical model of a jet injection in skin.
Return to the RISE project list
