Wireless thermal micro-ablation of skin for transdermal drug delivery

Abstract

This paper presents design, fabrication, and experimental results of a wireless induction heating system for generating micron-scale pores in the skin by thermal micro-ablation to dramatically increase skin permeability to drugs, while maintaining the patient-friendliness of conventional transdermal patches. The micro-heating element arrays have been fabricated using electrodeposition of nickel on a SU8 patterned structure. The heating element arrays have been characterized by applying wireless AC magnetic excitation using a coil, and applied to an in-vitro skin ablation experiment. The experiment has confirmed that fabricated micro-heating elements are able to generate heat sufficient to induce localized micro-ablation in human skin.