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Diabetes

Google announces glucose-monitoring contact lens prototype

By Nick Lavars
January 17, 2014
Google announces glucose-monitoring contact lens prototype
Google's prototype blood sugar-monitoring contact lens uses a wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor
Google's prototype blood sugar-monitoring contact lens uses a wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor
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Google's prototype blood sugar-monitoring contact lens uses a wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor
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Google's prototype blood sugar-monitoring contact lens uses a wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor

While we have seen the technology behind glucose-monitoring contact lenses develop over the least few years, getting them out of the lab and onto the eyes of diabetes sufferers has been a different story. With Google announcing its testing of a smart contact lens designed to measure glucose levels in tears, the search giant is looking to provide more effective management of the disease.

The project team, led by Brian Otis and Babak Parvis at the Google X laboratory, developed a wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor, embedding them between two layers of soft contact lens material. This formed a prototype of a smart contact lens, which Google says is capable of generating one reading of glucose levels per second.

Emphasizing the importance of proactive rather than reactive monitoring of blood sugar, Google says it is working on a function that would serve as a warning sign for the user, whereby it would illuminate small LED lights when glucose is at unsafe levels.

The potential of smart contact lenses for diabetes sufferers first became apparent in 2009 when Professor Jin Zhang of the University of Western Ontario embedded engineered nanoparticles into hydrogel lenses. Similarly, this system monitored tears for a rise or fall in sugar levels, and in the case that they were unsafe, triggered a chemical reaction that caused the lens to change color.

Then in 2012, a joint venture between Microsoft and the University of Washington sought to integrate electronics into such lenses, allowing for wireless reporting of glucose levels. Interestingly, Parvis worked on this project with Microsoft, but has since moved on to put his expertise to use at Google's secret research facility.

Google acknowledges that it is still a ways off bringing the lens to market, but says it has completed multiple clinical research studies and is currently in discussions with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It also hopes to seek out partners to develop apps and improve the usability of the device for doctors and the wearer.

Source: Google

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DiabetesGooglePrototypeContact LensesMonitoringDiabetesGlucose
5 comments
Nick Lavars
Nick Lavars
Nick has been writing and editing at New Atlas for over six years, where he has covered everything from distant space probes to self-driving cars to oddball animal science. He previously spent time at The Conversation, Mashable and The Santiago Times, earning a Masters degree in communications from Melbourne’s RMIT University along the way.

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5 comments
BigGoofyGuy
I think this is great news for those of us with diabeties. I think it would be less painful that having to get blood from fingers or other places (like arms) to do a glucose test.
attoman
Nothing new about using tears to monitor diabetes. The basic work is forty years old.
Problems arise in correlating this slow changing site with the rapidly changing blood glucose.
Nothing in this article suggest that Google has a clue.
Bryan Paschke
They have the sensor, why not implant it in the body where it could have direct access to the blood? Then hook it to an implanted insulin pump and all that's left is having them report status via text message when the system needs maintenance (more insulin, battery recharge, wild readings indicating failure of the sensor, etc)
Buckhoe
Microsoft research originally funded this project with the University of Washington. Google hired the lead researcher and with the ignorant so-called "tech media" laud the great, imaginative Google as the creators
simonsb161
Echo Therapeutics has a much more practical glucose monitor. It is a transdermal sensor that just attaches to your skin and doesn't use a needle like the current Dexcom or Medtronic systems. Echo is getting their glucose sensor approved in Europe in April, and in the U.S. later this year.