Oral Drug Delivery System for Gastrointestinal Track using Microneedles
The goal of this project is to develop an oral drug delivery device for biologic drugs (specifically insulin) that will be retained in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The project will focus on designing polymeric hollow microneedles that can deliver the drug for a long time control drug release rates and control time of degradation. Although an oral delivery system is preferred by patients the GI tract has a high pH variability and has a protease and bacteria-rich environment that makes biologic therapeutic delivery challenging. The needles will be housed in a self-righting device that has already been developed (this summer). The self-righting device ensures that the needle will only be actuated in the stomach (and not while traveling down the GI tract) with the right orientation.

I am a senior in Course 10B and have always been interested in biotech and global health. In the past I did research on nano lipid particles for mRNA delivery. I plan to go to graduate school in the future so I hope that this superUROP will prepare me well for thinking independently about an open-ended research problem.