Researchers in South Korea have created a futuristic, health tracking, electronic tattoo which will alert patients to certain health issues – and allow them to track their state of health.
The future may consist of patients carrying a device under their skin in the form of an electronic tattoo, which will automatically track their health status and flag up problems.
Made of liquid metal and carbon nanotubes that function as a bioelectrode, the inked skin will be equipped to track things like a patient’s heart rate, and other vital signs such as glucose levels.
Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Seoul claim that the innovation may eventually be able to dispense with biosensors.
Steve Park, a materials science and engineering professor, said: “When it is applied to the skin, even with rubbing the tattoo doesn’t come off, which is not possible with just liquid metal.”
“”In the future, what we hope to do is connect a wireless chip integrated with this ink, so that we can communicate, or we can send signals back and forth between our bodies to an external device.”
Electronic tattoo for health and cosmetic purposes
This new announcement is now the first when it comes to under-the-skin, tattoo style devices for health tracking.
American researchers recently developed “painless” tattoos which can be self administered, and are said to help with anti-ageing and other cosmetic purposes.
Prausnitz, who is Regents’ Professor and J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, said:
“We’ve miniaturised the needle so that it’s painless, but still effectively deposits tattoo ink in the skin. This could be a way not only to make medical tattoos more accessible, but also to create new opportunities for cosmetic tattoos because of the ease of administration.”
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