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Significance Vaccination is essential for combatting emerging epidemics and pandemics. Microneedle patches designed to precisely deliver cargos into the intradermal space, rich in immune cells, provide a noninvasive and self-applicable vaccination approach, eliminating the need for hypodermic needles and trained medical personnel for vaccine administration. Here, we show that advanced 3D printing methods allow for the manufacturing of polymeric microneedles of controlled geometries (difficult to manufacture using traditional methods) designed to enhance vaccine component coating. Using model vaccine components, we demonstrated that 3D-printed microneedle delivery resulted in enhanced cargo retention in the skin, activation of immune cells, and more potent humoral and cellular immune responses as compared with traditional vaccination routes.
Caudill et al. (Wed,) studied this question.