To Send Drugs Through Skin

Bozena Michniak, PhD, professor of pharmacology at New Jersey Medical School and head of the Laboratory for Drug Delivery at the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials, began her career in England as a registered pharmacist. Besides attracting the pharmaceutical industry, her HSE-1 has caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense. "The army is very interested in new biomaterials, drug and neutraceutical delivery."

Skin, hailed for its protective power, takes a tough beating. We exfoliate it, stretch it, tighten it, cover it with chemicals, and burn it. But in Bozena Michniak's laboratory, skin is viewed as a route of entry and an untapped resource. How do you deliver a drug through this permeable yet protective membrane without causing irreversible damage? This is Michniak's challenge. In the past, artificial skin was engineered for burn repair or wound healing, but the Human Skin Equivalent or HSE-1 Michniak has developed has a different use: testing drug absorbability, toxicity, and side effects. Traditional delivery options rely on pills and injections to send medication through the body's gastrointestinal or circulatory systems, which is like taking the long way home. A patch, gel, cream or ointment placed directly on the skin would offer a short, direct route with many benefits including less pain and the potential for higher potency. Michniak says her bioengineered HSE-1, like human skin, contains both a dermal and an epidermal layer. Her lab has also been trying chemical enhancers to modify how drugs pass through the skin. Enhancers might multiply a drug's penetration power, for instance. In clinical trials right now is a topical product for the treatment of psoriasis being developed for Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Michniak hopes her work will build other ties with pharmaceutical companies because she is offering a better way to deliver medications to targeted areas in the body.