Prick-free diabetes testing

Nearly 300 million people worldwide live with diabetes, and regular testing is a crucial part of many of their lives. Purdue university researcher Jonathan Claussen and his team have created a device that can detect bodily glucose levels from other serums as well. "It's an inherently non-invasive way to estimate glucose content in the body," he says. "Because it can detect glucose in the saliva and tears, it's a platform that might eventually help to eliminate or reduce the frequency of using pinpricks for diabetes testing. We are proving its functionality." The breakthrough is in the design of the sensor of itself, which leverages excellent sensing abilities of materials on the nano scale. The sensor should be cheap to produce on a large scale, and can easily be adapted to a wide range of uses. Claussen describes simple changes to the device that could make it suitable for detecting other compounds like alcohol and glutemate. "It's very versatile, fast, and portable."