Blood Glucose Readings By Cell Phone

Georgetown University, Gentag, Inc., and Science Applications International Corporation have combined forces to develop a noninvasive method for glucose measurement.

Three universities, Georgetown University, Gentag, Inc., and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC, NYSE: SAI), have joined together to develop a noninvasive method for blood glucose measurement. The three agreed to combine their respective intellectual property (IP) and expertise to create a new method to monitor glucose, using disposable skin patches with wireless sensors and cell phones. The products that result from this joint effort could eliminate the need for finger pricking with lancets to draw blood for people of all ages with diabetes. “This alliance provides an excellent example of cooperation between academia and industry to bring creative healthcare solutions to the marketplace,” said Claudia Stewart, Vice President of Technology Commercialization at Georgetown University. The combined technology will enable the development of a unique new platform and approach for glucose monitoring and insulin delivery using cell phones. A possible market application could be a disposable, wireless skin patch that measures glucose levels and reports those levels to a cell phone that could also wirelessly control an insulin pump. By using soft, flexible skin patches, combined with new sensor-chip technology, the traditional pain and discomfort of the current “finger prick” technology could be dramatically reduced or eliminated. The patches would provide readings once every hour for a 24-hour period. Using cell phones as readers would allow for convenience of a device many already use and are familiar with, as well as many other benefits, including emergency geolocation of patients. “We expect that this new, painless, disposable, wireless, glucose sensor technology will significantly improve diabetes monitoring worldwide,” said John Peeters, founder and president of Gentag, Inc. With funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the Department of Defense, John Currie, a professor of Physics and director of Georgetown Advanced Electronics Laboratory (GAEL), Mak Paranjape, an associate professor of Physics and researcher at GAEL Health Microsystems at Georgetown, and SAIC researchers Thomas Schneider and Robert White, who worked in the area of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), initially developed the skin patch technology to monitor the status of soldiers in a battlefield. The SAIC and Georgetown glucose sensor technology has been developed for DARPA and can be combined with Gentag’s cell phone RFID-sensor reader platform technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Gentag, Georgetown and SAIC have agreed to pool their IP and to sell or license the combined technology to a company developing glucose monitors or insulin-delivery systems under a competitive bidding process. The technology is protected by twenty-one issued and pending U.S. and international patents.