I love the idea of getting inked, except for the needles. Tattoo represents a lot of things for different people; a symbol of love, friendship, family, death, birth, joy, sorrow, a special event, spirituality or some random artsy-farsty. But have you thought of having a tattoo to monitor your heart or brain activity?  An engineering professor at the Northwestern University shows a rare fusion of skin art, technology and medicine via the wireless tattoo.

Prof. Yonggang Huang, who led the theory and design work at the academe, presents the union of the two fields: “The blurring of electronics and biology is the key point here. All established forms of electronics are hard, rigid. Biology is soft, elastic. It’s two different worlds. We found a way to truly integrate them.”

He also briefly explained the functionality of the product saying, “The electronics can be seen but not felt. Human skin is rough, but our electronics are able to follow the skin morphology and adhere like a temporary tattoo.”

Unlike permanent tattoos, the wireless versions stays on the skin temporarily, or within the designated time to monitor someone’s condition.  To be more specific, these epidermic patches will be checking for heart activities, brain functions and carry applications for wound treatments.  You will be amazed as to how the electronic membranes and wires are embedded onto the skin-thick tattoo.  It’s a new way of collecting data for a given purpose, with bioinformatics seeking new ways of leveraging that data to make faster bounds in research.  Technology is a major driver in academia, and big data is enabling research in new and exciting ways.

The marriage of information technology and medical science is inevitable.  And it could actually be a match made in heaven.  The tech community has ventured in industries outside the box; HP’s new-found devotion to link its webOS to automobiles and home appliances is a good example.  And there’s a great deal of pragmatic value that can be applied to medical and healthcare IT.

Just recently, science welcomed virtual lab rats as new members of their society. With this and wireless tattoo acting like a health and well-being monitoring tool, technological advancements in medicine is unstoppable and could go from anywhere to unimaginable scale.