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Google developing smart contact lens for glucose monitoring in diabetes
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Two Google project co-founders announced on the company’s official blog this week that they are testing a smart contact lens designed to measure glucose levels in tears. It has been proposed that the product will serve as a management tool for patients with diabetes.
“We’re now testing a smart contact lens that’s built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material,” Brian Otis, MS, PhD, and Babak Parviz, PhD, project co-founders, wrote in the blog post.
They’re now in the development phase, testing prototypes that could generate a reading once per second, according to the blog post.
The use of LED lights may be incorporated into the design of the product, signaling patients that glucose levels have gone above or below the recommended thresholds.
“It’s still early days for this technology, but we’ve completed multiple clinical research studies which are helping to refine our prototype. We hope this could someday lead to a new way for people with diabetes to manage their disease,” they wrote.
They’re currently in discussions with the FDA, according to the blog post.