Penn researchers are developing micro-thin devices that can be implanted under the skin — functioning as a cure for epilepsy or even a new type of light-emitting tattoo.
School of Medicine professor Brian Litt is working with a team to create the flexible devices used to sensor activity in any part of the body, including the heart and the brain.
The silicon devices that house the electronic monitoring chips dissolve once inside the body. A sheet of silicon silk keeps them in place, molding them into the shape of the skin where they have been inserted. The electrodes in the devices then go out to different parts of the body.
University of Illinois professor John Rogers and Ph.D. student Dae-Hyeong Kim are working to create the actual devices, while Litt is working with Penn Ph.D. student Jon Viventi to make the devices medically implantable.
Similar chips are already used inside bodies. However, the flexibility of these circuits means that they can move elastically with the body in places where a rigid circuit board cannot.
“We’ve been working on medical devices, but there are so many more uses out there for this technology,” Litt said.
Several science reviews have already picked up on the research to explain how the technology could be used to create LED “tattoos.”
The tattoos would emit their own light from underneath the skin, according to a recent article in Wired.
The article includes a video from Phillips Electronics, which is exploring the possibility of a sexual use for the device. Stimulated by touch, an electronic tattoo would move across the body, directed by sexual desires, presumably during intercourse.
Other potential uses of the tattoos include a full-body display for advertising, a map display on the back of the wrist and even chips that cover your eyeballs and darken down when the sun is shining too bright.
“That kind of technology is possible, but is way away from what I do,” Litt said.
Litt’s work focuses on translating neuro-engineering research directly into patient care, merging clinical sciences with engineering sciences.
His research is specifically centered on neurological uses. The technology could be utilized for detecting epileptic waves inside the brain, and therefore aiding the treatment of epilepsy.
The process, however, is difficult.
“The analogy I always like to use is that it’s like trying to get your toaster to work while submerged in your bathtub,” Viventi said. “We’re working with electricity in the mind here, which is potentially dangerous.”
The group’s efforts aim to improve technology that has not been updated in more than 50 years.
“We’re bringing advances in engineering to medical devices that have so far relied on very crude technology,” Viventi said.
For now, that is all the group aims to do.
“I’m focused on the science,” Litt said. “We can talk about the body art later.”
