Amazing and novel technique may prove to be very useful and helpful for diabetes patients. Flourescent beads that can bind with glucose molecules can be used to measure blood sugar levels by skin to light. No more blood drawing.
I really find this interesting and probably a worthy news to everyone.
Read more here.
Fluorescent beads illuminate sugar in blood - physicsworld.com
The days of pricking fingers several times a day to draw blood could become a thing of the past for diabetes sufferers, thanks to a new way of monitoring sugar levels in the body. The minimally invasive test, developed by researchers in Japan, could also provide patients with a more detailed picture of glucose concentrations as they fluctuate over time.
Shoji Takeuchi and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo, working with collaborators in industry and at Kyoto University Hospital, have developed a type of fluorescent bead that can be injected into skin. The beads contain a type of boronic acid that binds reversibly with glucose molecules. Once inside the blood, these beads, which are of the order 1 × 102 µm, can be tracked to reveal blood sugar levels by exposing skin to light.
In practice, diabetic patients would need devices containing an excitation light source and photodiode to read out the fluorescent signal. "The device would be as small as a watch or a piercing, and diabetic patients would wear the device," Takeuchi tells physicsworld.com.
Fluorescent beads illuminate sugar in blood
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