Utilization of the venturi effect to introduce micro-particles for epidermal vaccination

Skin represents a potent immunological induction site, with a dense network of special antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in the epidermal layer. DNA vaccination targeting APCs offers a promising new therapeutic intervention for a wide range of diseases. A unique biomedical device, the venturi powdered injection system (venturi), is proposed for the epidermal delivery of DNA vaccines. The novelty of this hand-held venturi device is in using the venturi effect to entrain DNA-coated micro-particles into an established quasi-steady transonic helium flow and accelerate them to an appropriate momentum for penetrating the skin or mucosal tissue to achieve an immunological effect. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been employed to scrutinize an experimental venturi device. Key features of gas dynamics and gas–particle interactions have been presented. A parallel extension was added to improve the uniformity of gas and particle flow for a better particle penetration distribution. The overall capability of the venturi biolistic configuration for delivering micro-particles has been explored and discussed. Statistical analysis has shown that the modelled micro-particles have achieved a mean velocity of 654 m/s for intracellular DNA vaccine delivery applications.