The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has supported research into microneedle patch technology that could store vaccination information under the skin using microscopic quantum dots.
The goal is to improve vaccine record-keeping in regions where medical documentation is often incomplete or lost.
The work, developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Rice University, was first detailed in a 2019 Science Translational Medicine study.
The team demonstrated that dissolvable microneedles could deliver both a vaccine and near-infrared quantum dots—nanoparticles that emit light detectable only by specially adapted smartphone cameras or scanners. The pattern of quantum dots remains invisible to the naked eye and can persist for months in animal models.
According to MIT, the project was funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation has also provided separate grants to companies such as Micron Biomedical to advance microneedle-based vaccine delivery systems, though these efforts do not include digital tracking or surveillance components.
Researchers emphasize that the technology is designed solely to provide an “on-patient” record of immunization status, not to serve as a biometric ID system. The concept remains in the laboratory stage and has not been tested or deployed in human vaccination programs.
MIT describes the approach as a potential solution to record-keeping challenges in low-resource areas where paper documentation is unreliable.
Multiple sites argue that the quantum dot tattoo / microneedle patch technology could be, or will become, the “mark of the beast” described in Revelation 13:16-18.
Some pastors and influencers claim vaccines or vaccine passports, especially if paired with technologies to track or verify vaccination status, might slide into requirements that Christians see as violating religious freedoms or being part of apocalyptic / end-times prophecy.
