Can tattoos embrace technology in order to make the skin interactive?

The DermalAbyss project was the result of a collaboration between MIT researchers Katia Vega, Xin Liu, Viirj Kan, and Nick Barry, and Harvard Medical School researchers Ali Yetisen and Nan Jiang.



DermalAbyss was a proof-of-concept that presented a novel approach to bio-interfaces in which the body surface would be rendered as an interactive display. By replacing traditional tattoo inks with biosensors whose colors change in response to variations in the interstitial fluid, it blended advances in biotechnology with traditional methods in tattoo artistry.

This was a research project, which has ended. There are no plans to develop DermalAbyss as a product or to pursue clinical trials.

