A microneedle patch tattoo is pressed to the pores and skin. Credit score: Georgia Tech
Scientists Develop Painless Tattoos That Can Be Self-Administered
Think about getting painlessly tattooed by a pores and skin patch containing microscopic needles, as a substitute of sitting in a tattoo chair for hours enduring painful punctures. Researchers on the Georgia Institute of Expertise (Georgia Tech) have developed low-cost, painless, and cold tattoos that may be self-administered. They’ve many functions, from medical alerts to monitoring neutered animals to cosmetics.
“We’ve miniaturized the needle in order that it’s painless, however nonetheless successfully deposits tattoo ink within the pores and skin,” stated Mark Prausnitz, principal investigator on the paper. “This could possibly be a approach not solely to make medical tattoos extra accessible, but additionally to create new alternatives for beauty tattoos due to the convenience of administration.”
Prausnitz offered the analysis within the journal iScience on September 14, with co-author Tune Li, a former Georgia Tech postdoctoral fellow. Prausnitz is Regents’ Professor and J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair within the College of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Tattoos are utilized in drugs for a number of functions. These embrace overlaying up scars, guiding repeated most cancers radiation remedies, or restoring nipples after breast surgical procedure. Tattoos may also be used as a substitute of bracelets as medical alerts to speak severe medical situations resembling epilepsy, diabetes, or allergy symptoms.
A magnified view of a microneedle patch with inexperienced tattoo ink. Credit score: Georgia Tech
Varied beauty merchandise utilizing microneedles are already available on the market — largely for anti-aging. Nevertheless, creating microneedle know-how for tattoos is new. Prausnitz is a veteran on this space. He has studied microneedle patches for years to painlessly administer medication and vaccines to the pores and skin with out the necessity for hypodermic needles.
“We noticed this as a chance to leverage our work on microneedle know-how to make tattoos extra accessible,” Prausnitz stated. “Whereas some persons are keen to just accept the ache and time required for a tattoo, we thought others would possibly choose a tattoo that’s merely pressed onto the pores and skin and doesn’t damage.”
Remodeling Tattooing
Tattoos usually use massive needles to puncture repeatedly into the pores and skin to get a great picture. It’s a time-consuming and painful course of. The Georgia Tech group has developed microneedles which are smaller than a grain of sand and are constructed of tattoo ink encased in a dissolvable matrix.
“As a result of the microneedles are manufactured from tattoo ink, they deposit the ink within the pores and skin very effectively,” stated Li, the lead creator of the research.
On this approach, the microneedles will be pressed into the pores and skin simply as soon as after which dissolve. They go away the ink within the pores and skin after a couple of minutes with out bleeding.
Tattooing Method
Though most microneedle patches for prescribed drugs or cosmetics have dozens or tons of of microneedles organized in a sq. or circle, microneedle patch tattoos imprint a design that may embrace letters, numbers, symbols, and pictures. By arranging the microneedles in a selected sample, every microneedle acts like a pixel to create a tattoo picture in any form or sample.
The researchers begin with a mould containing microneedles in a sample that varieties a picture. They fill the microneedles within the mould with tattoo ink and add a patch backing for handy dealing with. The ensuing patch is then utilized to the pores and skin for a couple of minutes, throughout which era the microneedles dissolve and launch the tattoo ink. Tattoo inks of varied colours will be included into the microneedles, together with black-light ink that may solely be seen when illuminated with ultraviolet mild.
A microneedle patch tattoo is held by inventor, Mark Prausnitz. Credit score: Georgia Tech
Prausnitz’s lab has been researching microneedles for vaccine supply for years and realized they could possibly be equally relevant to tattoos. With help from the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Canine, Prausnitz’s group began engaged on tattoos to establish spayed and neutered pets, however then realized the know-how could possibly be efficient for folks, too.
The tattoos have been additionally designed with privateness in thoughts. The builders even created patches delicate to environmental elements resembling mild or temperature modifications, the place the tattoo will solely seem with ultraviolet mild or greater temperatures. This gives sufferers with privateness, revealing the tattoo solely when desired.
The research demonstrated that the tattoos might final for at the least a 12 months and are more likely to be everlasting. This additionally makes them viable beauty choices for individuals who need an aesthetic tattoo with out the danger of an infection or the ache related to conventional tattoos. Microneedle tattoos might alternatively be loaded with momentary tattoo ink to handle short-term wants in drugs and cosmetics.
Microneedle patch tattoos may also be used to encode data within the pores and skin of animals. Moderately than clipping the ear or making use of an ear tag to animals to point sterilization standing, a painless and discreet tattoo will be utilized as a substitute.
“The purpose isn’t to exchange all tattoos, which are sometimes works of magnificence created by tattoo artists,” Prausnitz stated. “Our purpose is to create new alternatives for sufferers, pets, and individuals who need a painless tattoo that may be simply administered.”
Reference: “Microneedle patch tattoos” by Tune Li, Youngeun Kim, Jeong Woo Lee and Mark R. Prausnitz, 14 September 2022, iScience.
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105014
Prausnitz has co-founded an organization known as Micron Biomedical that’s creating microneedle patch know-how, bringing it additional into scientific trials, commercializing it, and in the end making it obtainable to sufferers.
Prausnitz and several other different Georgia Tech researchers are inventors of the microneedle patch know-how used on this research and have possession curiosity in Micron Biomedical. They’re entitled to royalties derived from Micron Biomedical’s future gross sales of merchandise associated to the analysis. These potential conflicts of curiosity have been disclosed and are overseen by the Georgia Institute of Expertise.