Dr. Roger Narayan

There’s no need to fear the microneedles developed by a team of NC State researchers led by Dr. Roger Narayan – they could become an important part of cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Narayan, a professor in the joint biomedical engineering department of NC State’s College of Engineering and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, developed the tiny, plastic needles to deliver quantum dots into the skin using multiphoton microscopy. Images taken during the delivery show the mechanism by which the quantum dots enter the layers of skin, allowing the researchers to verify the effectiveness of the microneedles as a delivery mechanism for quantum dots.

“The motivation for the study was to see whether we could use microneedles to deliver quantum dots into the skin,” Narayan says. “Our findings are significant, in part, because this technology will potentially enable researchers to deliver quantum dots, suspended in solution, to deeper layers of skin. That could be useful for the diagnosis and treatment of skin cancers, among other conditions.”

Narayan has also extensively studied medial applications for laser-fabricated devices, such as implantable sensors, drug delivery devices, and artificial tissues.