Next-gen Band Aids: It lights up when it’s low on medicine

It’s the shape of things to come tomorrow. What if your Band-Aid could sense temperature, light up and deliver medicine to the skin? Making tech and medicine meet,

It’s the shape of things to come tomorrow. What if your Band-Aid could sense temperature, light up and deliver medicine to the skin? Making tech and medicine meet, a team of researchers has come up with the Band-Aid of the future. MIT engineers have designed a sticky, stretchy, gel-like material that can incorporate temperature sensors, LED lights, and other electronics, as well as tiny, drug-delivering reservoirs and channels.

The “smart wound dressing” releases medicine in response to changes in skin temperature and can be designed to light up if, say, medicine is running low. When the dressing is applied to a highly flexible area, such as the elbow or knee, it stretches with the body, keeping the embedded electronics functional and intact.

Watch: Engineering a Smart Bandaid

Zhao says electronics coated in hydrogel may be used not just on the surface of the skin but also inside the body, for example as implanted, biocompatible glucose sensors, or even soft, compliant neural probes. The study is published in the journal Advanced Materials.