Cyber‐Physical Watermarking with Inkjet Edible Bioprinting

Abstract

Counterfeit medicines are a fundamental healthcare problem, threatening patient safety and public health as well as causing economic damage. Online pharmacies and the ongoing pandemic have promoted medicine counterfeiting. However, the existing anticounterfeit methods are limited because of material toxicity, low security, and complicated fabrication. Here a dosage‐level security method is introduced that combines digital watermarking and physical printing at the material level. A set of requirements is designed to ensure the edibility, printability, imperceptibility, and robustness of cyber‐physical watermarking. An inkjet printer using safe food coloring is adapted to print a watermarked image on a recombinant luminescent silk protein taggant to enhance attack resistance. Machine learning of color accuracy recovers unavoidable color distortions during printing and acquisition, allowing robust smartphone readability. An edible watermarked taggant affixed to each individual medicine can offer anticounterfeit and authentication features at the dosage level, empowering every patient to aid in abating illicit medicines.

Nanozyme-based colorimetric biosensor with a systemic quantification algorithm for noninvasive glucose monitoring

“…Coltro et al . reported a paper-based colorimetric biosensor for the measurement of surface acetic acid-to-chitosan-modified tear glucose 114 . They measured glucose concentrations in human tears using TMB as a chromogenic reagent ( Figure 6 A ).…”

“…Additionally, the optical hyperspectral image (HSI) can provide more detailed color information, because it covers narrow spectral bands in the visible, NIR, and IR range instead of assigning primary colors (Red, Green, and Blue). Therefore, more detailed information can be achieved from colorimetric detection than the primary colors 114 . However, spectrophotometers are bulky and expensive, making it challenging to apply glucose monitoring in various conditions.…”

Edible Matrix Code with Photogenic Silk Proteins

“…In retail and hospital pharmacy settings, medicines are separated from the original packaging and are placed into individual doses for patient safety, quality control, delivery, and inventory tracking. The existing dosage-level protections include QR code drug labels, , silica microtaggants, DNA taggants, , polymer molecular encoding, isotope-labeled excipients, multicolor nonpareil coatings, watermark bioprinting, and metal nanoparticle taggants. − Fluorescent material-based taggants are also an attractive alternative, − because fluorescence signals can be read under external stimuli while controlling certain encoding parameters. As a result, several fluorescent materials have been applied for anticounterfeiting medicine technologies, including barcoded microfibers using coumarin-6, rhodamine B microtaggants on polyethylene glycol, QR-coded capsules using upconversion fluorescent nanoparticles, dextran-modified 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate polymer particles, and lysozyme supramolecular nanofilms …”

Thieno[3,4‐c][1,2,5]Thiadiazole‐Based Organic Conjugated Molecules with Visible and Near‐Infrared Dual Emissions for Luminescent Anti‐Counterfeiting Applications

“…With the progress of information technology and economy, the demand for anti-counterfeiting strategies has been significantly urgent in many fields involving food, medicine, clothing, and communication. [1] Nowadays, various anti-counterfeiting technologies, such as holograms, [2] watermarks, [3] barcodes, [4] and luminescence, [1d,5] have been developed and widely applied. [1e] However, the conventional technologies such as watermarks luminescent materials, such as visible persistent luminescent materials, [8] stimuli-responsive luminescent materials, [9] and lanthanide-doped downshifting/upconversion materials, [10] of which the luminescent properties could be tuned under different time or stimuli (heat, chemical reagents, mechanical force, excited light, etc.)…”