News

Darrian Mills – MWC Chapter Scholar
1st Year Scholar, PhD candidate

Physics
Georgetown University

Research: 
My research focuses on developing a flexible skin patch that uses microfabricated heaters for the creation of micropores in the skin, enabling painless and non-intrusive drug delivery directly into the body.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society?
The most conventional path for drug delivery is the oral route, which presents several issues. Most notably, drugs taken orally must pass through the gastrointestinal tract, which often prematurely metabolizes drugs, lowering bioavailability. Thus, many drugs delivered orally must be administered with a larger dosage in order to account for this metabolic drug deficit. As a result, oral drug delivery can have pulsatile release profiles, which can lead to adverse side effects in patients.

Levodopa is an example of a drug that is rapidly metabolized and has a low bioavailability when administered orally. It is used in the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease, which is one of the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases in our society. Therefore, by administering Levodopa transdermally, Parkinson’s patients can potentially receive a better and more reliable alternative to current oral treatment options. In addition to enhancing drug therapy, the transdermal platform being developed has applications in the field of diagnostics.

How Will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?
All of the micro-fabrication needed for the research is done in the Georgetown University cleanroom, so an ARCS award would help to cover the user fees associated with utilizing the various machines in the cleanroom (typically $25-$50 per hour). Additionally, the ARCS award would aid in the procurement of human ex vivo skin models, such as those provided by Genoskin, Inc., in order to test the effectiveness of fabricated devices in a realistic manner that does not involve animal testing.

Career Objectives: 
I would ideally like to pursue a career that allows me to leverage the cleanroom and microfabrication experience I have gained over the past few years. As of now, I am planning to apply to postdoctoral positions at government labs or industrial positions focused on materials science and engineering.