When “inked” under the skin, a type of tattoo can detect four different types of cancer. It is a cancer-detecting biomedical tattoo that comes to nestle under the epidermis. Invented by Swiss researchers, it could revolutionize the detection of cancer.
Researchers created the cancer-detecting biomedical tattoo
This invention was made by Martin Fussenegger and his team from the Department of Biosystems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich, Switzerland.
The biomedical tattoo is injected under the skin, more specifically under the epidermis (the outer layer of the skin) as any other usual tattoo. However, from the outside, it looks like a mole.
The Swiss biomedical tattoo can detect four type of cancer
This tattoo changes its color to give the alert when it detects a form of cancer. According to the specialists, colon, lung, prostate, and breast forms of cancer can, thus, be spotted early.
Martin Fussenegger and his colleagues focused on the detection of these types of cancers because they are the most widespread in the world.
The system invented by researchers uses a network of synthetic genes
The system measures the level of calcium present in a patient’s blood and if the level is too high for a preset period of time, then the alert is triggered. If so, the tattoo will turn dark brown.
This is not a sign that the patient is going to die but, on the contrary, it increases the chances of survival because that’s early detection of cancer, according to the researchers.
At the moment, the only problem is that it will take at least 10 years before such a technology to be available to the general public. At first, the research must be continued, then the development and clinical tests must be concluded with success. However, the concept of a biomedical tattoo may well be on the rise, until then.
