13/12/2022, 18:32 Mosquito needle helps take sting out of injections | New Scientist

Mosquito needle helps take sting out of injections

TECHNOLOGY 16 March 2011

By Paul Marks

You will barely notice

(Image: David Scharf/SPL)

LOOK away now if you are afraid of needles. A motorised, harpoon-like needle sounds
painful, but in fact hurts far less than a regular injection because it resembles a mosquito’s
mouth parts.

Seiji Aoyagi and colleagues at Kansai University in Osaka, Japan, have developed a needle
that mimics a mosquito’s proboscis, which is serrated and barely touches the skin so you
don’t feel the initial
By clicking bite.
“Accept A smooth
All Cookies”, hypodermic,
you agree onofthe
to the storing other
cookies hand,
on your leaves
device a lot site
to enhance of metal in
contactnavigation,
with theanalyze site usage, and assist
skin, stimulating in our marketing
the nerves efforts. pain.
and causing

Aoyagi hopes his design could help diabetic people who have to take blood samples. Etched
Cookies Settings Accept All Cookies
from silicon, the needle imitates three of the creature’s seven mobile mouthparts: the two
serrated maxillae and the tubular labrum (see diagram).

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928044-900-mosquito-needle-helps-take-sting-out-of-injections/ 1/3
13/12/2022, 18:32 Mosquito needle helps take sting out of injections | New Scientist

Unlike Aoyagi’s previous attempts to mimic a mosquito’s bite, each of these parts is driven
by tiny By
motors
clickingbased
“Accepton lead zirconium
All Cookies”, you agree totitanate (PZT)
the storing – a piezoelectric
of cookies on your device tocrystal
enhancethat
site
navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
expands very slightly when you apply an alternating voltage (Sensors and Actuators, DOI:
10.1016/j.sna.2010.02.010). The vibrations of the crystal can be used as a simple motor to
control how the needle enters the skin.

The sections of the needle break the skin in the same sequence as they do with a mosquito,
vibrating at about 15 hertz to ease it into the skin – as observed in mosquitoes under high-
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928044-900-mosquito-needle-helps-take-sting-out-of-injections/ 2/3
13/12/2022, 18:32 Mosquito needle helps take sting out of injections | New Scientist

speed video microscopes. Aoyagi has tested his needle on himself and three volunteers,
who agree that the pain is much reduced but lasts longer than with a conventional syringe.
He thinks that by mimicking more of the creature’s mouthparts, including an addition to
steady the needle’s entry, he’ll be able to reduce that dull pain.

Microfluidics engineer Suman Chakraborty of the Indian Institute of Technology in

Kharagpur, who has also worked on similar designs in the past, is impressed by Aoyagi’s
progress. “It’s a substantial move towards improving the technology,” he says.

Magazine issue 2804 , published 19 March 2011

Sign up to our newsletters

Enter your email address to get started

Your email

SIGN UP

By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site
navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928044-900-mosquito-needle-helps-take-sting-out-of-injections/ 3/3