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Bio Create
Initial Project Proposal

September 11th, Two Thousand Twenty

Vaccine Alternatives

Lucille Ostrowski

Vincent Long

Gabriella Vasquez

Sebastian Orellana
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Table of Contents

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Broader Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Timeframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Project Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Developmental Process . . . . . . . . 4

Different Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Current Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Scientific/Engineering Concepts . . . 6

Monitoring and Evaluation . . . . . . . 6

Signatures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Background:
Sometimes, people (especially young children) experience pain during vaccinations. This
is a problem, because it associates getting a vaccination with pain. Getting a vaccination is a
healthy choice, but the pain may prevent an individual from getting vaccines. They are necessary
for surviving in a world with many diseases going around constantly.
Summary of Project: In this project, we plan to create a vaccine that is needle-free in hopes of
making vaccines available to a larger population. We plan to make a patch with microneedles
that is cheap, hypoallergenic and widely accessible.

Objectives:
Our goals are creating an alternative to using needles for vaccinations which are:
1. Painless
2. Efficient
3. Affordable
4. Easy to administer
a. Wide use
5. Environmentally friendly
a. Creates less plastic waste
b. Biodegradable

Broader scope:
Humans around the world share the fear for needles and annoyance from the pain. If
needles were eliminated from the idea of a vaccine, more people would be willing to receive
those vaccinations. According to PharmaJet, the fear of needles affects 50 million Americans, so
taking away that aspect would make the whole idea of a vaccine more appealing.
On a large scope, our product can help patients in any country through painless and
accessible vaccinations. We want to make the cost of production relatively cheap so that it can be
easily accessible. We also want to eliminate the cost of administration by making the vaccine
patch easy to use. Our product can help advance the next-generation of painless drug delivery
systems.
On a smaller scope, our research and form of testing will all be conducted locally.
Without proper access to create a vaccination, we will be making a prototype and surveying
people in the medical world for their opinions. We can conduct more research at our local Kaiser
and Sutter Health Hospitals as well as BioMarin. With our materials, all we can create are
different types of patches and hypothetically do the science and math for the needed
vaccinations.
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Our patch is not specific in terms of what disease it will be fighting, meaning our
prototype will have to be capable of administering multiple vaccines. This will make it more
universally usable for the medical world.

Timeframe:

Task Start End

Design Step 1 - Identify/Define the problem 8/27/20 9/4/20

The problem we are focusing on is the lack of
vaccine use due to pain and fear of needles
- Customer/ Marketing Research
What companies would be willing to
administer needleless vaccines?
- Identify Possible solution/solutions
Vaccine patch, oral vaccine, or shot blocker
technique.
- Identify design specifications
Cheap, easily accessible, non-allergenic,
pain-free
- Project proposal
This document
*all work in this design step was evenly split
between all of the teammates

Design Step 2 - Brainstorm alternatives 9/5/20 9/18/20

Functions: cheap, painless, easy to administer,
widely available
Concepts: how to achieve these functions
Classification scheme
- Decompose Product
Done in flowchart to break down the functions
- Form three design concepts
Pick three designs from classification scheme
- Sketch design concepts
*all work in this design step was evenly split
between all of the teammates

Design Step 3 - Evaluate Alternatives 9/18/20 10/2/20

- Select Design Concept
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- Decision Matrix

Design Step 4 - Use analysis, experiments, and models to help 10/2/20 10/16/20
establish dimensions and proof of concept
- Prepare detailed drawings of the design concept
you selected.

Design Step 5 - Create presentation to defend the design 10/17/20 10/30/20

Design Step 6 - Test product for preliminary functionality 10/31/20 11/13/20

- Conduct performance tests
- Get subfunctions working

Design Step 7 - Design performance test 11/14/20 11/27/20

- Optimize performance

Design Step 8 Prepare final design report 11/28/20 12/11/20

*steps 3-8 have not been done yet, so the work is not yet split up and we don’t know the
specifications of how each step applies to our project.

Project Budget:
Our budget is relatively small due to the inaccessibility of proper equipment; ​such as
machines to create metal microneedles and access to vaccines​. Our prototypes will be created
in a personal 3D printer. The PLA is sold in 600 g for $32 each. We will only need one spool of
this. The previously bought printer and software costs a total of $350.
For any further materials, we will reach out to the local hospitals and labs for
sponsorships​. ​This would include vaccines research, professional insight, prototypes of
patches to scale, and any additional equipment we cannot access as outsiders​. All in all,
materials will be quite cheap.

Developmental Process:
Firstly, we needed to recognize what was needed in the industry we chose. In other
words, we needed to define the problem. In the biomedical field, tools to better the distribution
of medicine is in high demand. After brainstorming and narrowing down options, we decided
that a major problem in medicine is vaccines. Many people refuse vaccinations, and we wanted
to pinpoint why.
Next we did lots of research on vaccinations. We decided that a major reason for the fear
of shots is the pain or the needles. We researched ways that doctors have tried to eliminate this.
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We found that there are many small solutions, but not many are fully implemented or widely
spread. For example, shot blockers are meant to distract from the needles pain, and the nasal
vaccine is a spray into the nasal cavities.
Next we brainstormed what we could engineer that would solve the problem and come
out better than previous products. We decided that a vaccine patch is what we wanted to design.
The requirements that our product needed to meet were painless, cheap, and easy to administer.
Our overall goal is to lessen the pain of vaccines in hopes to get more clientele, and to
make the vaccines accessible to other places where hospitals, trained nurses, and sterilization are
not as available.
The next step in our design process was to get approval from a mentor. We reached out to
a biomedical engineer in the area, and are working to set up a meeting to discuss our plan and
ask for approval.
The next step is to start prototyping our product, making sure that the problem we met at
the beginning of the process is solved. We will start this step after approval from both our
teacher and mentor.

Tests, Surveys, and Research Questions:

Our Survey: ​https://forms.gle/46pPskHy7wUhZKvSA

Demographic Beliefs of People Polled

❏ 95% Believe vaccines are safe
❏ 99% of people polled have been vaccinated before
❏ 33% of people who have ever refused a vaccine said it was because of the needle
❏ 50% of people would prefer a non needle based vaccine
❏ 64% of people wouldn’t care if an alternate version was less effective
❏ 17% said that the price of a vaccine is a factor in them getting it
❏ 73% believe that a fear of needles prevents vaccinations

Based on the results shown in our survey we can safely say that there is a large market for
our project. We also were able to confirm that the need we are meeting is real and an issue we
can fix. Due to our responses there is a very good chance we will have a successful product that
can be trusted by the consumers and users.

Current Solutions :
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What people are doing currently to curb the problem of pain during vaccination is topical
anesthesia and squeezing a stress ball or distracting oneself from the shot (the “look away”
method). Another strategy is a rewards system, but none of these change the nature of the
vaccination itself. It is still a needle going through some part of the arm, so we need a new
solution to these great problems.

Scientific/Engineering Concepts:
Need to knows
❏ Potential clients
❏ Children primarily
❏ People with t​rypanophobia
❏ Neurological diseases that result in low pain tolerance
❏ Veterinary purposes
❏ Areas in need
❏ How much clients are willing to pay for the product
❏ Needs to be FDA approved
❏ What are the needs for that?
Need to improve
❏ Materials
❏ Packaging
❏ How to keep the vaccine safe
❏ Cost to make the product
❏ Narrow down how to make the vaccine painless
Logistics
❏ Legal steps
❏ Link to FDA
❏ Possible sponsors
❏ Administered to hospitals but accessible outside
❏ Pharmacies
❏ Registered in distribution

What scientific and engineering concepts we used:

- Asking questions and defining the problem
We asked what advances needed to be made in the biomedical field, and found that
vaccines, more specifically the lack of vaccinations, could be traced to a fear of needles.
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- Developing and using models
We have started conceptual sketching, and we are on the path to start developing models
for this project.
- Analyzing and interpreting data
We created a survey to collect data on how our school perceives vaccinations. We analyzed
this data and concluded that vaccines would definitely be more widely used if the fear of
needles was out of the picture.
- Constructing an explanation (for science) and designing a solution (for engineering)
Explanation: A vaccine patch would eliminate the pain caused by needles due to the
microneedles that painlessly slip through the pores of the skin and deposit the vaccine into
the body's immune system.
Solution: Painless vaccine patch
- Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
We obtained the information from our peers, mentors and research and concluded that a
vaccine patch would be a successful product. The next step would be to communicate our
findings to possible sponsors or clientele.

The eight science and engineering practices are:

1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering)

2. Developing and using models
3. Planning and carrying out investigations
4. Analyzing and interpreting data
5. Using math and computational thinking
6. Constructing an explanation (for science) and designing a solution (for engineering)
7. Engaging in an argument stemming from evidence
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

Monitoring and Evaluation:

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Our project will be monitored by us, Mr. Tronconi, and our mentor, Anthony Campoy.
The official evaluation will take place December 2020, and be conducted by Mr. Tronconi and
several industry professionals.

Signatures:

Gabriella Lucille Vincent Long Sebastian Mentor Anthony

Vasquez Ostrowski Orellana Campoy

Citations:
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/5-ways-to-make-shots-painless-for-kids#The-need-for-
needle-pain-intervention
https://pharmajet.com/fear-needles-fatal-phobia/

This color:​ ​Content suggested by mentor, Anthony Campoy.

In bold:​ Edits from Mr. Tronconi