It looks like a simple cosmetic procedure or tattoo, but without needles and no pain. Instead, a microscopic jet of medicine shoots through the skin, leaving behind a treatment and a mark that shows whether it works. This needle-free injection is a glimpse of a future where bubbles powering microjets replace needles, pills, and even some surgical procedures. For Professor David Fernandez Rivas, this is not science fiction, but the direction his research on microbubbles and microjets is taking us. On 16 October 2025, he will deliver his inaugural lecture at the University of Twente.
David Fernandez Rivas’ research focuses on the mass transport and fluid dynamics phenomena at extremely small scales: microfluidics. Within these tiny channels, droplets and bubbles behave differently than they do in our everyday world. That difference opens up entirely new ways to manipulate liquids and particles with extreme precision.
“Each tiny jet we create with small bubbles is like a messenger,” says David Fernandez Rivas, professor of microfluidics at the University of Twente. “It carries kinetic energy or medicine precisely where we want it, without harming the tissue around it.” One of the best-known applications is the needle-free injection: using a jet (long droplet) of fluid to deliver medicine painlessly into the skin. But the same principle can also be applied to diagnostics, bioengineering research, and energy-efficient manufacturing.
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