- Technology could be used by sports coaches to fine-tune athletes' training
- It could also give clues about underlying metabolic diseases
- Easily made with a common screen printer on transfer tattoo paper
By Damien Gayle
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Medical sensors concealed within temporary tattoos could be used by coaches to fine-tune their athletes' training, a new study claims.
Researchers at University of Toronto Scarborough invented the sensor, which comes in a thin flexible transfer adorned with a cheerful smiley-face design.
'We wanted a design that could conceal the electrodes,' says Vinci Hung, a PhD candidate in the university's Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences, who was part of the team.
Smiley face: This cheerful temporary tattoo hides medical sensors that can can detect changes in the skin's pH levels caused by metabolic stress, which could be used by sports coaches and medical researchers
'We also wanted to showcase the variety of designs that can be accomplished with this fabrication technique.'
The new tattoo-based solid-contact ion-selective electrode (ISE) is made using standard screen printing techniques and commercially available transfer tattoo paper.
That's the same kind of paper that usually bears pictures of Spiderman or Disney princesses for youngsters to stick on to their arms.
In the case of the smiley face sensor, the 'eyes' function as the working and reference electrodes, and the 'ears' are contacts to which a measurement device can connect.
These sensors can detect changes in the skin's pH levels in response to metabolic stress from exertion.
Easily manufactured: This graphic illustrates the screen-printing process used to create the transfer sensors on commercially available transfer tattoo paper
Similar devices, called ion-selective electrodes (ISEs), are already used by medical researchers and athletic trainers.
HOW THE TRANSFERS WERE MADE
The new tattoo-based solid-contact ion-selective electrode (ISE) is made using standard screen printing techniques and commercially available transfer tattoo paper.
The University of Toronto team used a screen printer to lay down layers of silver, carbon fibre-modified carbon and insulator inks, followed by electropolymerization of aniline to complete the sensing surface.
By using different sensing materials, the tattoos can also be modified to detect other components of sweat, such as sodium, potassium or magnesium, all of which are of potential interest to researchers in medicine and cosmetology.
They were applied in a similar way to regular transfer tattoos, right down to using a paper towel soaked in warm water to remove the base paper.
They can give clues to underlying metabolic diseases such as Addison’s disease, or simply signal whether an athlete Is tired or dehydrated during training.
The devices are also useful in the cosmetics industry for monitoring skin secretions. However existing devices can be bulky, or hard to keep stuck to sweaty skin.
The new tattoo-based sensor stayed in place during tests, and continued to work even when the people wearing them were exercising and dripping with sweat.
They were applied in a similar way to regular transfer tattoos, right down to using a paper towel soaked in warm water to remove the base paper.
To make the sensors, Ms Hung and her colleagues used a screen printer to lay down layers of silver, carbon fibre-modified carbon and insulator inks, followed by electropolymerization of aniline to complete the sensing surface.
By using different sensing materials, the tattoos can also be modified to detect other components of sweat, such as sodium, potassium or magnesium, all of which are of potential interest to researchers in medicine and cosmetology.
'We wanted a design that could conceal the electrodes': Vinci Hung, a PhD candidate from Toronto's Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences, was part of the team that developed the sensors
Ms Hung contributed to the work while in the lab of Joseph Wang, a distinguished professor at the University of California San Diego.
She worked there for six months earlier this year under the Michael Smith Foreign Study supplement from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
'It was a wonderful opportunity,' Ms Hung said. She worked directly with Dr Wang, who is well-known for his innovations in the field of nanoengineering and is a pioneer in biosensor technology.
Kagan Kerman, assistant professor of bio-analytical chemistry and Ms Hung’s PhD supervisor at UTSC, is co-author of an article describing the work.
It has been accepted for publication in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal, Analyst, and is available on the journal’s website.
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