Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist on whether dental floss could be used to deliver vaccines

We’ve all heard that flossing daily is key to keeping your gums healthy. But what if your dental floss could one day do more than prevent cavities? What if it could protect your whole body from serious diseases, like the flu? 

Research published this week in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering shows that dental floss might be the future of vaccine delivery. 

In this unusual experiment, scientists used floss coated with vaccine components, such as proteins or inactive viruses and gently ran it between the gums of mice.  

It turns out that the soft tissue between your teeth is highly absorbent and rich in immune cells. This makes it a perfect spot for your body to detect and respond to threats like viruses. 

Now, flossing mice is no easy task. To pull it off, one researcher had to use a keyring to gently open each mouse’s mouth, while another maneuvered the floss between its tiny teeth. They did this every two weeks over a month. 

After the final flossing session, the mice were exposed to a deadly strain of flu. The results were astonishing - every single vaccinated mouse survived. The ones that didn’t get flossed? Sadly, they didn’t make it. 

Even more impressive, the vaccinated mice had flu antibodies not just in their saliva, but in their faeces and bone marrow, a sign that their bodies had mounted a strong and lasting immune response. Scientists also found a boost in the number of infection-fighting T cells in the lungs and spleen. 

To test the idea in people, researchers gave 27 healthy volunteers dental floss picks dipped in harmless food dye. On average, the dye reached the gum tissue about 60 percent of the time, suggesting the method could be viable with a little refinement. 

This floss-based method could solve some real-world challenges: 

Needle-free: Great news for people with needle phobia.

No cold storage: Unlike many traditional vaccines, these could be stable at room temperature. 

Easy distribution: Imagine getting your vaccine delivered in the mail and flossing your way to immunity. 

Better for outbreaks: During pandemics, this kind of simple delivery could help reach more people, faster. 

Of course, there’s still a long way to go before you’ll be replacing your flu jab with floss. But this research opens up exciting possibilities for painless, practical, and more accessible vaccines in the future. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB with our science study of the week. Doctor Michelder
can say, good morning, Good morning. This sounds fascinating. This
is brilliant.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
It is, but also when you read into it and
you think, wow, this is the day and a life
of a scientist. This is what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
But I'm just intrigued how they went from needles to
dental floss, To be honest with you, that's the bit
that intrigues me.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
So this is published this week in the journal Nature
of Biomedical Engineering. And basically, we all know that flossing
is good for our gums. We should order it. But
this group of scientists went what else you could do
with dental floss? And the reason why I looked at
this is because they understood that actually the soft tissue
between artisa gums is highly absorbent and it's highly rich

(00:54):
in immune cells, and so that makes it a perfect
place for your body to detect and respond to threats
such as a virus. And most people take our gums
for granted and don't think of it as like the
first line of defense. And they went so surely if
that's our first line of defense, if we attacked the
gums with something, they might be able to protect us
against it. So here's what they did, And they did
this on mice first, which is why it's kind of cute.

(01:17):
They basically covered dental floss with a whole bunch of
different vaccine components, including proteins and inactive viruses. And then,
and this is the hard bit, and there's a whole
chapter in this publication about how they did this, They
flossed the teeth of mice.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
That was going to be my nixt question.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, it's exactly as how hard you can, right, cool,
So they flustered the teeth of mice for a month. Literally,
we're just standard dental floss that they have dipped into
these vaccine solutions. And then now, sadly this doesn't end
well for the mice, obviously because they're in a lab.
But then they expose the mice after a month to
a deadly strain of the flu, and half of the

(01:56):
mice had been flossed and half of them hadn't. All
the ones that hadn't been f lost died instantly. One
hundred percent of the flossed mice survived, so they were
fully immune against this strain of the flu that they
had had on their floss for the past month. And
not just did they survive, but if you looked at them,
they had antibodies in their saliva and their feces and
their bow marrow which had a really strong and lasting

(02:19):
immune response to the flu. So this simple gum flossing
had actually created the antibodies that they need to protect
them with their lives and there was no injection needed,
which you start thinking, okay, well does this work on humans?
So you can't just do this to human storyway, there's
a whole bunch of ethics. So what they did instead
to prove the concept is they took dental floss and
twenty seven humans and they put a special type of

(02:41):
dye in the dental floss and got them to floss
the teeth as per usual, and they were able to
find that, yes, the components in this dye were absorbed
by the humans. That's as far as they can go
in the circle without more ethics. So in theory, you
could potentially floss your vaccine instead of having to have needles,

(03:01):
and it will give you the same sort of immunity
as at least it works in mice. You can't say
definitely will, but it looks like it's going to work
in humans. And you think about some of the challenges
around vaccines, and number one, people are afraid of needles.
Easy one. Again over number two, if you think about
storing vaccines, they need cold storage, which is fine if
you're in a Western country, but if you're trying to
get them elsewhere, that's a real challenge. Number three easy distribution.

(03:24):
If you just have a big vial of whatever the
thing you need to dip it in as a whole
bunch of floss and you start dipping, you could now
distribute that much more easily. And number four, if we
think about pandemics and I don't want us to talk
about COVID anymore, but think about whatever the next pandemic
will be, because there will be another one, how do
you scale up protection from it quickly? Well, imagine if
you're able to just.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Because you wouldn't want to be flossing your teeth for
a you know, for a month to.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Get the no, and so what they would do it?
So what they did They did this for a month
and the study and then did the final test. Now,
what they didn't prove is how many days flosses you
would actually need for good immunity, and that will depend
on different viruses of course, so yes, but maybe just
regular active floss might be part of a good immunism.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I don't know what else could we put on?

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well lost, that's the next thing. Yeah, I don't know,
but I thought number The reason why I picked the
study is because there's a cute little picture of these
two people trying to hold them for the mouse mouth
as one of them is like flossing and the other
owner is like trying to stop the mouse from binding them,
And you just think, yes, scientists, thanks for doing what
you do.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Oh you could just imagine the conversations.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
How does work?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Oh it's good.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
What are you up to?

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Oh I'm just spinning my days, flossing my stating every day.
I love it. Thank you so much, Michelle H. Where
can we find this study?

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudken, listen
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