A collaboration between scientists at Harvard and MIT has developed a tattoo ink that can be programmed to change color in response to changes in concentration of different biomarkers. For example, rising glucose levels turn the tattoo from green to brown. Unlike typical body monitoring devices, the team’s “biosensitive ink” has the benefit of not relying on electricity, being always “on” whether the patient remembers to use it or not, and not having to draw bodily fluids to get a reading.
The ink is designed to interact with the interstitial fluid that holds many of the same biomarkers that blood carries. So far the prototype ink, which has not yet been formulated to prevent it from fading or seeping into the rest of the body, has been made to detect high glucose or sodium concentrations. Glucose, of course, is the primary biomarker of diabetes, while high sodium levels may indicate dehydration, a useful parameter for athletes, manual laborers, and adventurers, among others. Unlike reading glucose levels using the biosensitive ink, which can be done with the naked eye, getting a measure of sodium requires shining a blue light on the green colored ink. Higher concentrations of sodium are represented by a more intense green color when illuminated with blue light.
So far the technology has been tried on pig skins, and there’s a lot more research left to do before the same can be tried on living humans. We do hope that such permanent, easy to use technology, will soon help chronically ill patients manage their conditions with unprecedented ease.
Here’s a Harvard video presenting the new smart tattoos:
Article in Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers: The dermal abyss: interfacing with the skin by tattooing biosensors…
Via: Harvard…