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| UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering |
Todd Coleman, director of the Neural Interaction Lab at the
University of California, San Diego, has designed “epidermal
electronics” as thin, flexible and easy to wear as a temporary tattoo.
“They pick up any electrical signal from the body,” Coleman says, and
can monitor the heart, brain (through electroencephalography, or EEG),
muscle contractions, even the heartbeat of the fetus inside an expectant
mother.
“It’s a wearable technology that you literally do not feel, that
other people cannot see on you, and that can monitor very precise
information about you.”
In 2012, Coleman and his collaborator John Rogers at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were awarded a Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation Challenge grant to use these “electronic tattoos” for remote
pregnancy monitoring, checking up on everything from maternal body
temperature and heart rate to contractions, then sending the information
wirelessly to a smartphone. As far as application of this technology
goes, “the sky’s the limit,” he says.
-MCLEANS
-MCLEANS
