Domestic researchers have developed a wearable sensor that enables diagnosis and management through complete non-invasiveness.
The National Research Foundation of Korea noted on the 30th that a research team led by Shin Jae-ho, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), has developed a wearable system that precisely measures bidirectional gas molecular flow in and out through the skin. This result is from joint research with a team led by John Rogers, a world-renowned scholar in biomedical engineering at Northwestern University, and the paper was published in the international journal "Nature" on the 9th.
The skin serves as the outermost boundary of our body that distinguishes between the inside and outside, facilitating the exchange of various gas molecules. In other words, it acts not only as a highway conveying important information about our body's health to the external environment but also as a pathway that allows harmful substances, such as volatile organic compounds present in the atmosphere, to infiltrate the circulatory system.
The researchers devised and developed a fully autonomous wearable system capable of continuously monitoring various gas flows on the skin surface for several days simply by being attached to the skin. A fully autonomous wearable system refers to a wearable sensor that can operate independently without wired connections, as it integrates battery and wireless communication functions.
This system was developed based on a simple principle. If you block a stream of water with your palm, the water rises along your palm, with the rising speed reflecting the original flow rate of the stream. The researchers utilized this principle to measure gas flow rates anywhere on the skin using a compact gas sensor and an electromechanical valve system.
Through animal experiments and initial clinical trials, it was demonstrated that the developed sensor system can be broadly utilized for the precise diagnosis of skin barrier function, monitoring of homeostasis in vulnerable populations, assessment of individual hygiene status, evaluation of skin degradation due to environmental hazards, and comprehensive monitoring of the entire process of wound healing, including inflammation and infection.
Shin Jae-ho said, "Through commercialization research, it seems that we can develop various forms of specialized medical devices, skin beauty devices, personal hygiene devices, and create practical market value."
References
Nature (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08825-2