Hate needles? This ingestible pill painlessly injects drugs into your gut

Enlarge / Self-righting capsule orients itself in the gastric cavity and delivers biologic molecules to the tissue wall. (credit: Science | Felice Frankel)

If the sight of a doctor flicking a needle makes you cringe, you may be better off going with your gut, according to a team of researchers at MIT and Harvard.

The team is working to knock out the need for painful, anxiety-inducing shots by having patients gulp a pill instead. But not just any pill, but an autonomous one that can right itself in your gut while packing a tiny, spring-loaded shot of drugs that it then injects directly into the thick wall of your stomach. The painless prick could deliver therapeutic payloads that normally wouldn't survive the harsh, acidic environment of the stomach. By doing so, it would make life a lot easier for needle-fearing patients and for those who depend on frequent drug injections, such as people with diabetes who take daily insulin shots, the researchers say.

In a report in the February 8 issue of Science, the researchers reveal a prototype of their autonomous pill along with positive results from tests in pig stomachs where they tried delivering insulin. While the research is still in the very early stages, the data so far hints that their self-righting pill-about the size of a pea-could one day work in patients.

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments