Transdermal patches have become a widely used approach for painless delivery of drugs. One major current limitation of these systems remains the restricted skin permeation of proteins and peptides as exemplified by insulin, necessitating different considerations for their successful transdermal delivery. We present a novel patch design based on the integration of nano-engineered heating elements on polyimide substrates for electrothermal transdermal therapy. The results reveal that tuning of the electrical resistivity of an array of gold nanoholes, patterned on polyimide, facilitates a fast-responding electrothermal skin patch, while post-coating with reduced graphene oxide offers capabilities for drug encapsulation, like insulin. Application of insulin-loaded patches to the skin of mice resulted in blood glucose regulation within minutes. While demonstrated for insulin, the skin patches might be well adapted to other low and high molecular weight therapeutic drugs, enabling on-demand electrothermal transdermal delivery.

中文翻译：

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电热贴片驱动胰岛素的透皮递送

透皮贴剂已成为一种广泛使用的无痛给药方法。目前这些系统的一个主要限制仍然是蛋白质和肽的皮肤渗透受限，例如胰岛素，需要对其成功的透皮递送进行不同的考虑。我们提出了一种基于纳米工程加热元件集成在聚酰亚胺基板上的新型贴片设计，用于电热透皮治疗。结果表明，在聚酰亚胺上图案化的一系列金纳米孔的电阻率的调整有利于快速响应的电热皮肤贴片，而还原氧化石墨烯的后涂层提供了药物封装的能力，如胰岛素。将载有胰岛素的贴剂应用于小鼠皮肤，几分钟内即可调节血糖。