The skin, being the largest organ in the human body, is responsible for a wide range of functions particularly with the sense of touch, but science has taken it a step further by allowing the skin to communicate what is happening inside the human body.
This, after the University of Tokyo announced that it has developed a bionic skin that could help surgeons gther information about the health condition of a patient, alerts when the body is about to fall ill or diagnose diseases that is happening inside the human body.
Scientist Takao Someya, the lead researcher for the program, invented the bionic skin – also called the e-skin- which is made of light and composite materials, yet relatively indestructible that could someday make its mark in medical and scientific history.
Someya said that he is seeing a future where doctors would someday be using this technology by simply wearing a glove in order to help detect and diagnose signs of diseases, like tumours that may be hiding inside the human body by simply feeling ot touching it.
It would definitely eliminate the need for numerous referrals and diagnostic scans through early detection via regular routine checks.
The e-skins, which may be worn like a suit, tattooed on bodies or sewn into clothes, could also be utilized as a 24/7 monitor to check vital signs or aid doctors in predicting possible heart and stroke attacks.
The ongoing tests are currently underway with robots, according to Someya, pointing out that the development of artificial skin has been underway for several years however initial breakthroughs limited the capabilities to temperature or pressure readings, as well as bulky attachments that connected sensors to the artificial material.
Another challenge was the cost where materials were too expensive it would immensely be too pricey to cover an entire robot with artificial skin, considering that the natural human skin roughly contains 20 square feet of skin and more than two million pain receptors.
Someya said he started looking for alternative materials and back in 2003, he started swapping rigid electronic materials like silicon with flexible organic materials like dinaptho thieno thiopene (DNTT) commonly used as security foil strip on bank notes and currency bills.
These improved the structure and system by minimizing the volume of all bulky materials used for the artificial skin.
“The ultimate goal, our dream, is to harmonize humans and robots by making full use of soft electronics,” Someya said, adding that this technology could someday get humans closer to robots and vice versa.
Image Credit: The bionic skin that can feel a tumor – CNN
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