Intravenous infusion, commonly known as "hanging saline solution" or "drip infusion", is a milestone invention in the history of medication. However, this method requires the assistance of professional medical staff, and patients need to stay in the hospital for a long time, sit for long periods of time, and have limited mobility, resulting in a poor experience. Recently, Professor Gu Zhen, Researcher Zhang Yuqi, and Researcher Yu Jicheng from the School of Pharmacy at Zhejiang University, along with the team led by Chief Physician Zhu Honghu from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine and Beijing Chaoyang Hospital affiliated with Capital Medical University, published a research paper in the international academic journal Science Translational Medicine, introducing the patch infusion patch developed by the joint team. This coin sized, less than 5mm thick miniature "infusion bottle" can achieve minimally invasive and stable in vivo infusion of high-dose drugs. There are limitations to intravenous infusion. Intravenous infusion is a medication delivery technique that delivers liquid drugs directly into the bloodstream through venipuncture. Its action mainly relies on gravity, and pre prepared liquid drugs need to be slowly and continuously dripped into the patient's vein. Currently, high-dose, short half-life drugs such as chemotherapy, antibiotics, and analgesics are commonly used in the treatment of tumors, bacterial infections, and postoperative pain. Patients often need to be hospitalized for intravenous infusion or multiple subcutaneous injections of medication to achieve constant administration. At the beginning of 2021, the Gu Zhen team noticed that a patient with acute myeloid leukemia had extensive redness, swelling, and bruising on their arms due to prolonged intravenous infusion. In the early stage of acute myeloid leukemia treatment, patients need to receive medication continuously through intravenous infusion for 72 hours. In addition, their coagulation function is impaired, making the treatment process more painful and affecting their mental state. Based on this case, Gu Zhen and Zhu Honghu had in-depth discussions on how to make infusion therapy more convenient and efficient, in order to alleviate the pain of patients. We are considering whether we can 'bypass' venipuncture and develop a device that uses transdermal drug delivery, "said Gu Zhen. However, how to change the storage form of traditional intravenous infusion drugs and get rid of the dependence on gravity or electronic pumps for infusion has become a difficult point for the team. Inspired by the principle of action of sustained-release capsules, the joint team decided to innovate and integrate osmotic pump technology with transdermal microneedle devices. After 3 years of polishing, a patch type infusion patch was developed. This patch type infusion patch can load more than 2 grams of medication, and is divided into two layers: the medication chamber and the water chamber. There are three hollow microneedles with a length less than 2 millimeters and a diameter of about 0.2 millimeters connected to the medication chamber. Compared to traditional infusion devices, a major feature of adhesive infusion patches is their lightweight and portability. They can be directly applied to the skin like band aids and administered directly through the skin. The joint team designed a specialized mold to load the chemotherapy drug cytarabine for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia into the drug cavity through a special compression process. When taking medication, the specialized solvent is injected into the water chamber using the syringe provided in the medical device box. The solvent can penetrate the semi permeable membrane into the drug chamber to dissolve the drug, and the osmotic pressure difference between the drug chamber and the water chamber is used as a driving force to deliver the drug solution to the human body at a stable speed through the hollow microneedle array. The solid-state tablet drug loading technology used in this achievement can improve the stability of small molecule, peptide, and protein drugs at room temperature, and has significant advantages in the convenience of storage and transportation at room temperature Zhao Sheng, one of the main inventors of this achievement and a researcher at the School of Pharmacy, Zhejiang University, said. Through comparative experiments, the joint team found that a piece of sticking infusion patch loaded with cytarabine or Exenatide, a diabetes treatment drug, could achieve 24-hour continuous administration in animals. Compared with subcutaneous injection, patch infusion patches have shown significant effects in inhibiting tumors and reducing blood sugar. Among them, the infusion patch of cytarabine can stably release 225 milligrams of the drug in a large animal model, which is sufficient to meet the daily dosage requirement of 150 milligrams to 300 milligrams for adult patients in clinical treatment. Its effective duration is three times that of subcutaneous injection. Zhao Sheng told reporters that the sticking infusion patch is more suitable for the treatment of some infectious diseases and metabolic diseases, such as the infusion of antibiotics. The existing design specifications can meet the daily dosage of most drugs in clinical practice. At present, the joint team has validated the high-dose and long-term stable controlled release of patch infusion patches on various animal models for anti-tumor drugs, hypoglycemic drugs, and other drugs. Each raw material used in the adhesive infusion patch has been approved by the drug regulatory department, ensuring the safety of the product. In addition, the infusion patch can also be mass-produced through component assembly, matching industrial sterilization and packaging process design. "We expect this technology to play a more important role in clinical disease treatment, not only for stable infusion of small molecule drugs, but also for the continuous release of polypeptides, proteins, nucleic acids and other drugs to help treat infectious diseases, tumors, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes and other diseases." Zhang Yuqi said that this infusion patch is expected to be used in the home, travel, work and other scenes of patients, and because it does not rely on gravity, it can even be used in space medicine in the future, making drug delivery more convenient.