Chemical Engineering Department

Significance Vaccine kinetics, the timing of antigen and/or adjuvant delivery to lymphoid organs, have recently been shown to substantially influence immune responses to subunit vaccines, but strategies to control vaccine kinetics in a clinically translatable manner are still lacking. MNs are arrays of solid micron-sized projections that have been utilized in early clinical trials for vaccine delivery. Here, we investigated whether implantable MN skin patches could be used to control vaccine kinetics. We show that sustained intradermal release of an HIV subunit vaccine from MNs enhanced GC responses and significantly improved humoral immunity compared with traditional bolus injections. The findings of this study have strong translational relevance as MNs, such as described here, can provide rapid needle-free vaccine administration.