A new skin patch administers medication in less than 15 seconds through 100 needles that mimic snake fangs. Since the patches are pain-free and easy to use, scientists hope they’ll increase immunization rates.

a new pain-free injection technique inspired by snake fangs, which inject venom into a prey as soon as the fang enters the skin. The team created tiny snake fang-shaped capsules made with hydrogel material of the size of one-thousandth of a standard syringe.

Each of the hydrogel capsules has six pores filled with vaccines or other liquid drugs to be smoothly seeped into the body. Researchers then attached one-hundred of these hydrogel capsules onto a small square patch.

Medicine can be delivered in just ten seconds without inducing any pain. "The system is meticulously designed to deliver medicine directly through the skin. The immune cells in the skin would actively react to the medicine, boosting the patient's resistance to diseases." The hydrogel patches are very versatile and can be used for other purposes such as cosmetic tools.