Fabrication of porous biodegradable microneedles for glucose monitoring sensor

Porous microneedles are expected to be applied for diagnostic system such as blood glucose sensing. Needles have a large volume of randomly distributed pores, and enable to extract body fluid by capillary force. Porous needles made with Poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) for sampling interstitial fluid were investigated. PLGA, that is FDA-approved biodegradable polymer, has tunable mechanical strength. PLGA microneedles array is advantageous for not remaining in the skin even if microneedles broke down during injection to skin. Therefore, it is expected to be used widely for diagnostic devices because of its less-invasiveness and safety. In this study, we fabricated PLGA porous microneedles array by thermal drawing lithography and salt-leaching method. Microneedles array was fabricated with 600 mu m in length and 30 mu m pore size with 50 % of porosity. The microneedles are expected to have enough strength for skin insertion, however, needed to improve its' permeability.