{"id":20180,"date":"2017-05-31T18:03:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T22:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=20180"},"modified":"2019-03-12T13:13:13","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T17:13:13","slug":"mit-researchers-develop-self-ventilating-workout-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/mit-researchers-develop-self-ventilating-workout-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"No More Sweat During Exercise: MIT Researchers Develop Self-Ventilating Workout Suit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A team of researchers at the MIT Media Lab have developed an unconventional way to keep you cool on long sweaty runs, bike rides, or trips to the gym. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The researchers constructed a latex workout suit with ventilating flaps, triggered by an athlete&#8217;s sweat and body temperature. The flaps are coated with microbial cells, which change in size due to the humidity of their environment. The cells do no harm to the skin, and are even safe to ingest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TUN spoke with Dr. Wen Wang, the study&#8217;s lead author and a former research scientist in MIT\u2019s Media Lab and Department of Chemical Engineering, to gain insight on the research.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe found that microbial cells are sensitive to moisture change in the environment. At dry condition, the cell shrinks to a smaller size, while at humid condition, it swells to a bigger size,\u201d said Wang. \u201cWe utilized this mechanical cell size change for making biohybrid fabric. This fabric can respond to skin moisture through bending, and create the airflow to help remove the moisture on the skin. It can sense your sweat release and response to enhance the ventilation.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p>When the microbial cells don\u2019t sense moisture, the latex flaps sit flat against the skin, like any other shirt.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Biologic\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/142208383?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The team consists of bioengineers, designers, architects, fashion designers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, and industry experts. \u201cWang co-led the project, dubbed bioLogic, with former graduate student Lining Yao as part of MIT\u2019s Tangible Media group, led by Hiroshi Ishii, the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Arts and Sciences,\u201d according to an <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/news.mit.edu\/2017\/moisture-responsive-workout-suit-0519\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MIT news release<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. MIT also paired up with researchers from New Balance Athletic to develop the product.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAt the MIT Media Lab, Tangible Media Group focuses on developing programmable material to seamlessly connect the digital world with the tangible world,\u201d Wang Informed TUN. So Tangible Media group was the perfect place to make their research into a physical product. \u201cIn this work, we combined knowledge in biotechnology, material science, mechanical engineering and design, to fabricate sweat-responsive micro-actuators, which is well-aligned with our research scope &#8220;programmable materials,\u201d Wang said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Students played a considerable role in the development of the project. MIT PhD students and visiting PhD and Masters students came to help, mainly in the designing process. \u201cTheir involvement is essential and key in this project, especially the participation of Dr. Lining Yao and Mr. Chin-Yi Cheng,\u201d Wang told TUN. Jonathon Zuniga, Kyle Yuan, and Nicole Zeinstra are undergraduate students who worked toward the development of the project. \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They were involved in the early stage when characterizing the cell performance,\u201d Wang said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The use of yeast, bacteria, and other microbial cells does not stop with shirts. \u201cWe can combine our cells with genetic tools to introduce other functionalities into these living cells,\u201d Wang said in a statement. \u201cWe use fluorescence as an example, and this can let people know you are running in the dark. In the future we can combine odor-releasing functionalities through genetic engineering. So maybe after going to the gym, the shirt can release a nice-smelling odor.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The researchers have already developed a running shoe with similar ventilating technology. The ventilation flaps sit towards the bottom of the foot, directly above the sole. That is where the most sweat accumulates. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The workout suit is not yet marketable, and that is partially due to the fact that they haven\u2019t tried to wash it yet. Researchers are worried that the microbial cells will separate from the material in the wash, and that&#8230;could be a problem. But Wang has a possible solution, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/bacteria-on-this-wearable-allow-it-to-open-vents-automatically-when-you-sweat#page-3\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">according to Popular Science<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, in that \u201cspilled wine or blood on your dirty shirt could be food for bacteria (or more likely, yeast) that could remain alive and gobble up those substances and emit a nice odor in the process.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clearly, there are some kinks to be rubbed out, but the researchers have high hopes for the future. \u201cThe technology is still in incubation stage,\u201d Wang told TUN. \u201cWe are not ready to market it at this moment. But we hope to work together with companies in the wearable field to co-develop the technology and commercialize it in the future.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team of researchers at the MIT Media Lab have developed an unconventional way to keep you cool on long sweaty runs, bike rides, or trips to the gym. The researchers constructed a latex workout suit with ventilating flaps, triggered by an athlete&#8217;s sweat and body temperature. The flaps are coated with microbial cells, which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":20182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[626,231,623,232,376,230,229,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-campus-news","category-exercise","category-technology","category-massachusetts-institute-of-technology","category-news","category-lead-stories","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MIT-workout-suit.png",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MIT-workout-suit-224x144.png",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MIT-workout-suit-300x193.png",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MIT-workout-suit.png",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MIT-workout-suit.png",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MIT-workout-suit.png",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MIT-workout-suit.png",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jackson Schroeder","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/jackson-schroeder\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A team of researchers at the MIT Media Lab have developed an unconventional way to keep you cool on long sweaty runs, bike rides, or trips to the gym. The researchers constructed a latex workout suit with ventilating flaps, triggered by an athlete&#8217;s sweat and body temperature. The flaps are coated with microbial cells, which&hellip;","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/MIT-workout-suit.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}