A team of 12 Turkish academics won a gold medal at Romania’s Euroinvent 2026 competition for developing a 3D-printed hydrogel microneedle patch to treat melanoma.
Supported by the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK) and the Health Institutes of Türkiye (TÜSEB), the team won the WIIPA award among participants from 17 countries. They work under the Health Biotechnology Joint Application and Research Center of Excellence (SABİOTEK), a collaboration of Yıldız Technical, Marmara and Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa.
Combining chemotherapy and photothermal therapy in a single platform, the patch cuts treatment time in half while reducing systemic side effects. Patent applications have been filed for the surgery-free method delivering drugs directly to the tumor.
“The system distributes drugs locally through microneedles only to the cancerous area,” Yıldız Technical University Bioengineering Department faculty member and SABİOTEK Co-Director Cem Bülent Üstündağ said.
When stimulated by 808-nanometer wavelength light, quantum dots heat the system, damaging cell proteins and triggering apoptosis alongside controlled drug release, he said. Direct hyperthermia and the drug’s effect shorten the process compared to traditional periodic chemotherapy, Üstündağ said.
