They create a tattoo that glows to reveal the oxygen in the blood

Researchers have created a silk-based material that they can place under the skin and that changes intensity as it is exposed to different levels of oxygen in the blood.

While it is fashionable to wear tattoos, in the future these tattoos could provide more than aesthetics, because researchers at Tufts University have created a silk-based material that can be placed under the skin and that shines more or is dims under a lamp when exposed to different levels of oxygen in the blood.

Is about a really functional tattoobecause it tells you how much oxygen you’re using when you exercise, but it’s also capable of measuring your blood glucose level at any time of the day or even monitoring a number of different blood components.

This sensor is limited to oxygen levels at the moment, and is made up of a gel formed from the protein components of silk called fibroin.

When assembled into a gel or film it adjusts to create a structure that lasts under the skin from a few weeks to over a year, and when the wax breaks down it is compatible with the body.

so he is able to continuously monitor substances in the bloodsomething that can be a great advantage when tracking certain conditions of the human being.

The researchers put diabetics as an example, who have to draw blood regularly to decide what to eat or when to take medications, but instead the vision that these researchers tried is to make monitoring much easier with these types of tattoos. .

“Silk provides a remarkable confluence of many excellent properties.“, points out David Kaplanprofessor of engineering in the Tufts University School of Engineering and principal investigator of the study.

“We can make it into films, sponges, gels, and more. Not only is it biocompatible, but it can contain additives without changing its chemistry, and these additives can have sensing capabilities that detect molecules in their environment. The oxygen sensor is a proof of concept for a range of sensors we could create“, Add.

And it is that the chemistry of silk proteins facilitates the collection and retention of additives without changing their properties.

To create this oxygen sensor, researchers they used the additive called PdBMAP that glows when exposed to light of a certain wavelength, and this glow has an intensity and duration proportional to the level of oxygen in the environment.

The silk gel is permeable to surrounding fluids, so the PdBMAP sees the same oxygen levels in the surrounding blood. PdBMAP is also useful because it glows, or phosphoresces, when exposed to light that can penetrate the skin.

In the experiments this implanted sensor has been able to detect oxygen levels in animal models in real time and accurately track high, low, and normal oxygen levels.