Preventing diseases may soon be as simple as applying a band-aid

An innovative new way to deliver vaccines could drastically improve the health of the third world, and even the first world, by making vaccines cheaper and easier to distribute and use. The “vaccine patch” would be as easy to apply as a Band-Aid, and would be stable for weeks at room temperature. “You could potentially get a vaccine patch over the counter from your pharmacist, go home, and wear it for a band-aid for a couple minutes, then pull it off, then that’s your vaccine,” researcher Peter DeMuth told Business Insider. The patch differs from the nicotine and birth control patches currently in use. It uses tiny “microneedles” coated in DNA, which is deposited into the very outer layer of the skin. The needles are so small they are painless, they don’t pierce down to the level of blood vessels so there’s no bleeding, and no risk of infection. “What we’ve shown in...