
August 8, 2011
Implantable “Hydrogel” sensor might soon measure your blood glucose levels
by ruchiA research group in Japan is working on an alternate means to measure blood glucose levels which will largely benefit people with diabetes. It’s a sensor that needs to be implanted in the body and its color changes owing to the level of sugar in the blood. They first tested the sensor in a mouse’s ear and it was based on the “Hydrogel” substance developed by the research group. They took a fiber-shaped Hydrogel for stability and placed it in the mouse for as much as four months. Obviously this will only be a relative means of measuring blood glucose level.
Given the kind of effort that goes in to actually plant one of this inside the body of a rodent and that too for relative readings, I think there are already tons of gadgets for domestic use which do a fairly good job. Anyway, the researchers say that a lot of problems need to be solved before a fiber-shaped sensor can actually be implanted in human bodies.
[Techon]