Terrance Gregg, executive chairman of DexCem, who worked with Google to develop smart contact lenses, once said that it may take millions or even billions of dollars to successfully develop a noninvasive blood glucose measurement tool, which shows that to achieve the successful result of this breakthrough biotechnology, huge investment and artificial intelligence are needed.
Taiqing research team successfully developed a wearable blood glucose sensor. At the beginning of this year, the domestic Taiqing research team announced the successful development of a wearable blood glucose sensor, which can infer blood glucose concentration by analyzing sweat components, and has the function of self-power supply, and users can measure it in just 30 steps.
The research team pointed out that this blood sugar sensor detects lactic acid or glucose by analyzing the components in sweat to infer the concentration of blood sugar. Compared with the traditional blood sugar detection method, it has the advantages of non-invasive and real-time analysis. This wearable device is expected to be available within two years at the earliest, benefiting diabetics.
Apple and Google, two well-known American companies, have also set up research teams to actively develop non-invasive and sustainable blood glucose sensors, and have also achieved considerable results.
Apple develops optical sensor to detect blood sugar. It is understood that the noninvasive blood sugar measurement method developed by Apple is to measure blood sugar by letting light penetrate the skin through an optical sensor. According to the US Consumer News and Business Channel, Apple's research and development plan has been carried out in secret for at least five years. If it is successful in the future, it will probably be used in Apple's only wearable device "Apple Watch".
Google develops micro radar combined with artificial intelligence to detect blood sugar. In addition, Google cooperated with German hardware company Ling Fei to jointly develop a small radar equipment, and looked for potential application business opportunities from multiple teams around the world. One of the systems named "Waterloo" uses the aforementioned small radar equipment to send high-frequency radio waves to liquids containing different levels of glucose, and receives the radio waves reflected back to it. Then the information on the reflected wave is converted into data, and then the machine learning AI artificial intelligence algorithm developed by researchers is analyzed.
It is understood that this artificial intelligence software can detect blood sugar changes according to 500 waveform characteristics. In Waterloo Institute of Aging, compared with the traditional invasive blood test, the preliminary test results of volunteers reached 85% accuracy. The research team said that it is possible to detect blood changes with radar.
However, next, the research team must make systematic improvement, accurately quantify the glucose level, and get stable results through skin test. This is still a complicated and long-term arduous project. The researchers said, "What we want is to feel blood, and we don't need to extract any liquid. This liquid will make people's fingers sting several times a day."
The research team also continues to work hard to reduce the size of radar equipment, so that it can be low-cost and low-power. The ultimate goal in the future is to develop a smart wearable device (such as a smart watch) in five years, which is used to monitor blood sugar, similar to the device used to monitor heartbeat now.