The instrument can help detect harmful bacteria on tooth enamel

May 29, 2012 14:53 GMT  ·  By
The new dental health-monitoring tattoo is seen here attached to a cow's tooth
   The new dental health-monitoring tattoo is seen here attached to a cow's tooth

Researchers at the Princeton University have created a special, removable tattoo, that will soon be capable of monitoring dental health at unprecedented levels of accuracy. The sensitive instrument will be able to detect harmful bacteria that develop on tooth enamel.

This is also where the tattoo adheres, as demonstrated by the image to the left. Scientists say that they created the sensor using gold nanowires and silk strands taken directly from cocoons. The work was carried out at Princeton's Engineering Quadrangle.

Expert Michael McAlpine is the principal investigator on the project. He has recently demonstrated the technology by affixing a prototype of the sensor on a cow's tooth, and then breathing on it. The instrument immediately generated a response on a computer monitor.

The wireless response to the external stimulus is real-time, he explains. Additionally, the sensor itself can be interfaced with a large number of biomaterials, which means that its uses may eventually be expanded beyond monitoring dental health.

In addition to producing results very fast, the tattoo is also capable of detecting minute amounts of bacteria. This will come in handy for the early diagnosis of conditions that need to be caught early on in order to avoid extensive damage.

To create the innovative tattoo, the silk and gold wires were bundled with the 2D carbon compound graphene, a material renowned for its remarkable chemical and physical properties.

Investigators say that graphene will be of extreme use in the electronics industry, but the material also has very important applications in biotechnology and medicine. Its honeycomb lattice enables the development of extremely sensitive sensors.

“In principle, the graphene can be tailored to detect a range of different things. It can be configured to detect DNA or certain viruses. Here, we detect a single bacterium,” says McAlpine, who holds an appointment as an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton.

He explains that the graphene array features a small antenna, which can relay a signal to a reader device that is small enough to be portable. The system is described in the March 27 issue of the top scientific journal Nature Communications.