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The Future of Tattoo Removal...?

Davis Zwicky
Dr. G 
Biol 1610
Blog Post

Today I came across an article that has a possible solution of removing tattoos in the near future as an alternative to laser removal. Laser tattoo removal is notorious for being very painful, time costly, and expensive. An article was posted in The Journal of Experimental Medicine explaining that a French research team has found a possible alternative involving blocking the immune system's macrophages, eventually leading the tattoo to be erased as the cells die off. 

I was very interested in this post because I have always been fascinated with tattoos and the stories behind the people that get them. I have seen plenty of amazing tattoos in my life and just as many, if not more, tattoos that people regret getting and no longer want on their body. When I talk to the people that do not like the tattoos on their body I ask them if they are thinking about getting them covered up or even removed. Almost everyone says that they are not willing to get them removed because the process is not worth the pain, money, or time to them. This new discovery presents a possible new alternative to laser removal which would not be painful. 

Sandrine Henri and her colleagues research the origins and genetics of skin macrophages and how they interact with other immune cells in the skin. When studying mice with black coats they discovered that they have a specific type of skin macrophage that ingest pigment particles, and it lead to the thought that macrophages in human skin may also play a roll on absorbing tattoo ink particles.

To prove that human skin macrophages held tattoo pigment they modified some mice to have macrophages with diphtheria toxin receptors. Once they tattooed the mice and confirmed that the ink was absorbed by the macrophages they exposed them to diphtheria to kill off the macrophages to see if the ink was destroyed along with them. Unexpectedly the ink stayed in the skin and they found out that once the macrophage is killed off the ink is released and just picked up by another one in a very close vicinity. This is how tattoos stay in our skin for so long with minimal spreading across your skin. 

So even though they did not come up with a complete method of completely removing tattoos they are in the process right now on developing a method for delivering genetic instructions to specified types of immune cells to not pick the ink up. This is just the beginning of this kind of research and I think will be figure out in the next several years! It would be an incredible discovery and a huge business if they can figure out how to remove tattoos with genetic instructions and simple killing of macrophages!

Works cited
Costandi, Mo. “Tats Off: Targeting the Immune System May Lead to Better Tattoo Removal.” Scientific American, 6 Mar. 2018, www.scientificamerican.com/article/tats-off-targeting-the-immune-system-may-lead-to-better-tattoo-removal/.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 27, 2018 at 11:37 AM

    This is an interesting article. I too have always been fascinated by tattoos and the meaning behind receiving the tattoo. Do you think that once they do have a set method for this type of tattoo removal it will become a popular way of removing tattoos? I would imagine that it's quite expensive since there's so much science research and testing involved. So people might not go for it because it's so expensive. -MJA

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  2. UnknownApril 27, 2018 at 12:30 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. UnknownApril 27, 2018 at 12:41 PM

    Davis, I find this topic extremely interesting because I never knew why it was so hard to remove a tattoo. My cousin got a tattoo in Europe when he was 18 years old and has regretted it ever since. The tattoo got infected and it does not look good. Now every time he goes to work, he has to wear an arm sleeve. He has always wanted to get it removed but has never had the money to do it. He is now 30 years old and this mess up has effected him his entire life. However, the fact that when they did the experiment on the mice, the macrophage was killed and then the ink would just attach to to another macrophage, makes me worry. If and when they are able to find a different treatment, it could end up just as costly as it is currently, but it could change what is now a painful removal, into a removal that is less painful. Even though the cost may still be high, at least it wouldn't hurt as bad. RR

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