New Smart Lens Measures Continuous Blood Glucose Level in Real-Time
New Smart Lens Measures Continuous Blood Glucose Level in Real-Time
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  • 승인 2022.05.02 22:59
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▲Wireless smart contact lens and diabetes diagnosis results sent to a smartphone
▲Wireless smart contact lens and diabetes diagnosis results sent to a smartphone

 

Google’s Contact lens, which diagnosed diabetes by analyzing glucose in tears, had become a hot topic. However, clinical trials have been suspended because the correlation between blood and tear glucose has not been verified, due to the low sensitivity of the glucose sensor. However, a new smart contact lens that can accurately diagnose blood glucose in real-time has recently been developed.
Professor Hahn Sei Kwang, Dr. Kim Su-Kyoung, and Lee Geon-Hui in the Department of Material Science and Engineering developed smart contact lenses for continuous glucose monitoring in collaboration with Professor Zhenan Bao (Stanford University) and Dr. Shin Sang-baie (PHI BIOMED Co.).
The research results was published as a frontispiece in the international top journal Advanced Materials.
Prof. Hahn’s research team succeeded in filling bimetal (gold and platinum) nanocatalysts and glucose oxidase within porous polymer hydrogels, increasing the reaction speed and sensitivity of glucose sensors. As tears containing glucose are quickly absorbed into the porous hydrogels, they react with glucose oxidase, and the movement of electrons generated at this reaction causes changes in the current. The bimetal nanocatalysts filled in the porous hydrogels play an important role in quickly generating electrons, which has a great advantage in that tear glucose can be accurately measured in real-time.
As a result of the study, the response time of the glucose sensor mounted on the lens has been accelerated to half that of the previous smart contact lens, and high-sensitivity glucose analysis is possible with reproducibility for more than three weeks. In more than 30 rabbit experiments and clinical trials with a researcher, the glucose level in tears analyzed with a smart contact lens was also confirmed to well-match with the blood glucose level using the conventional blood glucometers.
The newly developed high-sensitive, real-time monitoring smart contact lens diagnosis system can be applied to various biomarkers analysis and is expected to be used in the diagnosis of various intractable diseases. 
Prof. Hahn said, “We signed a consignment production MOU with Interojo Co. to manufacture clinical trial samples for diabetes diagnosis smart contact lenses, and we will try to contribute greatly to improve the quality of life of diabetic patients by successfully conducting clinical trials with Prof. Kim Tae-Im (Yonsei University’s Severance EYE Hospital) and Prof. Kim Nan-Hee (Korea University’s Ansan Hospital), a diabetes specialist.”