DNA tattoos are the final frontier of love

It all began with a floating leg. Or, more specifically, an idea came tattooed on the leg of a woman kicking through the water in Key Largo, Florida, seen clear as day through Patrick Duffy’s diving goggles. Duffy, who ran a scuba diving therapeutic programmes for military veterans with his father, was inspired by the tattoo; it was her dedication to her late husband, a Navy SEAL killed in combat.

“In that moment, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to turn that tattoo into a reliquary?’” Duffy said. “To put a piece of something she cared about, maybe even her husband, into the tattoo itself?”

Four years, a handful of dedicated colleagues and nearly a dozen patents later, Duffy has brought the idea to life with Everence, a product he and his partners hope will deepen bonds - in the most literal and physical way - between family, friends and loved ones. 

It is about as biologically intimate as one can get. Everence is a powdery substance synthesized from a sample of DNA, something as simple as a few thousand cells from a swab of a person’s inner cheek, or from cremated ashes. A small vial of Everence can be brought to a tattoo artist and added to any type of inks. The result: A tattoo imbued with the DNA of another human being - or, if you prefer, a dog, cat or other furry friend.

In so doing, Duffy and Endeavor Life Sciences, his company, join the ranks of a winding list of biohackers, artists and technologists dabbling in the world of biogenic tattoo artistry. Many have mixed ash, hair or other material with inks to include organics in tattooing for years.

But that practice has long been left to underground artists, a subculture unto itself with a dark, self-aware nickname: “morbid ink.” So far this has been something of a symbolic gesture, as the organic material introduced into their inks would eventually be absorbed into a subject’s body. Others write off the practice as part of the growing bodyhacking movement - think “Neuromancer” meets “Miami Ink.” Biohackers are often looked down on by scientists for their more relaxed, or more adventurous, approach to ethical questions in medicine.

In recent years, the practice of has been reanimated, so to speak, by armchair enthusiasts. There is the DIY crowd, such as Skin46, who seek to raise money on Kickstarter for biogenic tattoo efforts based on hair samples. CGLabs, a Canadian outfit, is pioneering its own method, primarily marketed as DNA preservation (though not necessarily for the ink-stained crowd).

Everence takes a different approach. Customers are asked to mail their DNA samples to Endeavor’s laboratory in Quonset where the material is milled, sterilised and enclosed in microscopic capsules of PMMA - you know it as plexiglass - which is often used in medical applications like dentures, bone cement and cosmetic surgery.

Thanks to its little envelope, instead of the DNA disappearing into the body, it is captured permanently in the ink of the tattoo. Duffy and his partners believe this creates an even more palpable, resonant bonding experience.

The pitch is a curious, emotionally poignant one coming from Duffy, a gruff, plain-spoken New Yorker with a background in real estate and a degree in political science. But after starting the nonprofit therapeutic scuba diving programme for veterans with his father nearly a decade ago, Duffy, 40, said he was inspired to find new ways of connecting people while honoring those they may have lost.

A rube to the worlds of both tattoo artistry and biomedical engineering, Duffy spent the past four years seeking out experts in both fields, eventually finding advisers including Bruce Klitzman, an associate professor of surgery at Duke University, who endorses the practice: He says it’s as safe as traditional tattoo inks.

Duffy and Edith Mathiowitz, a professor at the Center for Biomedical Engineering at Brown University, have patented the technology. Mathiowitz’s work has focused on what applications polymers like PMMA can have in the human body, and she previously worked on removable tattoo ink projects.

Under the United States Food and Drug Administration, tattoo inks are viewed as cosmetics, a designation that Everence will also adopt. Historically, the agency has not regulated them, though it continues to warn consumers of the inherent risks of tattooing, including infection, allergic reactions or developing granulomas from foreign particles in the body.

Duffy insists that he has done his homework on safety. And, in an interview, Mathiowitz noted that the company will follow the strict regulations around how cosmetics must be created, as outlined by the FDA.