People with diabetes could soon have a pain-free way to check their blood glucose levels. Researchers at the University of Missouri–St. Louis have developed a portable, inexpensive non-invasive blood glucose detector; the university has licensed patent rights for the device to St. Louis Medical Devices Inc., a Missouri company headquartered at UMSL’s own startup company incubator – IT Enterprises, to bring the device to market.
The small monitor will allow for pain-free, convenient detection of glucose levels in capillaries of the finger with no waste (strips, lancets, etc.) and no need to draw blood. It tests blood characteristics by shining near-infrared light through the finger, detecting the light transmitted through the targeted area, and generating an output signal. A processor receives the output signals, calculates a change in the magnitude of light power transmitted through the finger and determines a characteristic of blood – in this case glucose. Future applications of the device could include other blood analytes such as cholesterol.
Reviewed 2013-02-18