Transient disruption of skin’s barrier properties using high-voltage pulses involves complex changes in skin microstructure believed to be due to electroporation. Electroporation of cell membranes is a well known phenomenon which has found extensive use as a method of DNA transfection in biological laboratories (1 –3 ). More recently, it has been shown that the multilamellar lipid bilayer membranes found in skin can also be electroporated (4 –17 ). The dramatic and reversible increases in skin permeability caused by electroporation indicate that drugs might be delivered transdermally at significantly enhanced rates. Especially for macromolecules, such as protein- and gene-based drugs, electroporation-mediated transdermal drug delivery could be an important pharmaceutical approach.
