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Dental floss gets a upgrade: needle-free vaccines [1]
['Gail Sherman']
Date: 2025-07-24
Your next flu vaccine might be administered by your dentist, according to a new study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. Harvinder Gill, an engineer at North Carolina State University specializing in nanomedicine, theorized that the highly permeable tissue of the gums could serve as an effective vector for vaccines.
To test this idea, Gill and Rohan Ingrole, first author of the paper and a chemical engineer at Texas Tech University, had to do something no scientist had done before: Try to floss a mouse. It was a "quite difficult" two-person job, Gill says: One scientist gently pulled the mouse's jaw down with the metal ring from a keychain while the other administered the floss. Science
Tests using a fluorescent protein revealed that the mice had elevated levels of antibodies in multiple organs, indicating a strong immune response. For the next test, the floss was imbued with an inactive flu virus. The mice received three doses via floss over a period of twenty-eight days. When exposed to a live flu virus, all the vaccinated mice survived, while the unfortunate unvaccinated control group all died.
Human subjects were tested using dental picks coated only with food dye. The dye was successfully transferred to the subjects' gums, and most stated that they would consider this type of vaccine and preferred it over needle delivery. Only time will tell if people hate needles more than they hate flossing.
Previously:
• You should be flossing with water
• Flossing is bullshit
• Ted Danson learning to floss
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