The University of Leeds may have solved one of the biggest holy grails in medicine, the ability to measure blood glucose levels without penetrating the skin. Currently, finger pricking is the daily grind of diabetics worldwide, which also involves careful pipetting of the blood samples into the glucometer. Neither the pain nor the process is pleasant, and is particularly difficult for young children that don’t understand the purpose of it all.
The new technology relies on a special silica glass that has ions throughout that fluoresce in infrared in response to laser light. The length of the fluorescence is proportional to the level of glucose present near the surface of the skin when the glass slide is pressed to a finger. Simply measuring how long the fluorescence lasts provides an estimation of the sugar level in the blood below. In a small scale clinical study at the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine, the technology has shown considerable promise to be able to match currently used glucometers.
The University of Leeds has partnered with NetScientific to spin off Glucosense Diagnostics, a company tasked with further developing the technology and commercializing it into a real product.
Source: University of Leeds…
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