What do you think will happen to Tom without Jerry, to Beavis without Butthead, to Bill without Hillary or to “Copy” without “Paste”? Unthinkable right? We can’t imagine how one can exist without the other. How about Blood Glucose measurement without blood?
The bright minds at Northeastern University came up with a really ingenious method of obtaining blood sugar level by using an outfitted iPhone. Professor Heather Clark at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences modified an iPhone to measure blood glucose using externally accessible “biomarkers”. Instead of pricking your fingers or drawing blood from your veins, the patient will be injected with a minute amount of a specially formulated solution. Then, the iPhone with specially built case, lens and LED array will read the information from the injected solution, which glows upon contact with glucose. The level of florescence will be picked up by the mobile device which will then be relayed to a computer for analysis.
The inventors are planning to create an app to enable in-device processing of information. Support for other metabolites such as Sodium, Potassium, etc. is also in the works.