A programmable, battery-less, autonomous and biodegradable smart dust particle

A system for non-invasive, continuous monitoring of skin or biological tissue beneath the skin of a patient, the system comprising:

• (a) a plurality of programmable, battery-less, autonomous, and biodegradable smart dust particles (SDPs), wherein each SDP comprises:
• (1) a layered separating medium providing physical support and configured for chromatographic separation of chemical compounds from a sample;
• (2) at least one detector comprising an array of sensors printed on layers of said separating medium, and configured to generate signals indicative of the presence or properties of said chemical compounds;
• (3) embedded electronics printed on layers of said separating medium, operatively connected to said detector;
• and
• (4) at least one radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag connected to said embedded electronics, configured for remote readout and zero-power operation, and comprising a unique identification (ID) barcode associated with said SDP;
• (b) an external signal receiver configured to wirelessly receive signals transmitted from the RFID tags of said plurality of SDPs after said SDPs are applied to the skin overlying the biological tissue;
• and
• (c) a processor operatively connected to said external signal receiver, said processor configured to:
• (i) correlate the signals received from each SDP with a spatial coordinate on the skin based, at least in part, on the unique ID barcode of the respective SDP;
• and
• (ii) generate a spatiotemporal chemical tomogram representing a map of detected chemical compounds across the biological tissue based on the spatially correlated signals received from the plurality of SDPs over time.

A method of chemical tomography for non-invasive, continuous monitoring of biological tissue, the method comprising:

• I. Applying a plurality of programmable, battery-less, autonomous, and biodegradable smart dust particles (SDPs) onto skin overlying the biological tissue, wherein each SDP comprises a unique identification (ID) barcode and sensors configured to generate signals related to chemical compounds proximate to the SDP;
• II. Wirelessly receiving, via an external signal receiver, signals transmitted from said plurality of SDPs over a period of time;
• III. Correlating, via a processor, the received signals from each SDP with a spatial coordinate on the skin based, at least in part, on the unique ID barcode of the respective SDP;
• IV. Generating, via the processor performing an artificial intelligence (AI) analysis, a spatiotemporal chemical tomogram representing a map of detected chemical compounds across the biological tissue based on the spatially correlated signals;
• and
• V. Monitoring the status of the biological tissue based on the generated chemical tomogram and changes therein over the period of time.