Hey PWDs: Have you ever interpret the headline of an article and thought to yourself, G-force, that sounds familiar? That's what we thought last week when newsworthiness of a nano-tattoo for monitoring blood sugar started popping up again. We first heard nigh this technology way back up in 2002, and then again in 2009, and symmetrical in 2010. So is anything rattling spick-and-span there?

Turns out the latest is that scientists at Northeastern University are integration iPhones into their research. Dr. Heather Charles Joseph Clark and her team in Boston get been woody at work finished the years on a tiny, discrete tattoo for glucose sensing. Equivalent a normal tattoo, dyestuff is injected under the scrape. But unlike a normal tattoo, the dyestuff has special nanosensors that, when co-mingled with a particular molecule like glucose, "fluoresces" and is detectible past shining a little light on the tattoo.

Now Dr. Clark's group has developed an optical device for reading the tattoos that attaches directly to the back of an iPhone (see photo). Patients would be able to see the changes in color that high and low blood glucose produce. Also, the brighter the sensors fluoresce, the higher the blood glucose.

How accurate is a system like this? Well, the technology and tools to analyze the florescence are still in development, but Dr. Joe Clark is hopeful that nonpareil solar day patients will be able to superman their insulin based off their tattoo. Eventually her team too wants to develop an iPhone app that volition help analyze the blood sugar readings produced.

What's besides new active the nanotech tattoo is itstiny size, pickings up whol of 2mm. So we're pretty sure Mom would live OK with this one. "It can lone be faintly seen in the skin," Dr. Clark explains. "It does change color, but the change is fairly subtle."

Also, it's not really indissoluble, only rather more the like a temporary tat.  Because of the materials utilised, the tattoo would need to beryllium replaced about all week, as it would comprise shed with the outer layer of your skin. Dr. Clark explains, "Cardinal things pull through inferior permanent: where we identify it in the skin — little deeply than a traditional tattoo — and the materials we make it out of.  We purposely use materials that degrade with time for biocompatibility reasons."

So what's the realistic ETA on this cool new technology? Dr. Clark would like to move into human trials, only her team isn't quite ready for that however.  She expects to see "progress within the next 5 to 10 years." Ugh! Past we all know we won't accept much of an idea how things testament really go until the FDA gets a nigher look.

"The biggest challenge has been finding funding for such an manque goal," Dr. Clark says.

And there's the rub, Friends. One of the just about infuriating aspects of perceptive the diabetes industry — and really medical inquiry in general — is watching millions of dollars organism spent on promoting and making incremental changes to treatments that already be (drugs, pumps, meters, etc.).  But when it comes to funding something truly innovative that could revolutionize the way of life we make out diabetes… ? Weensy wonder (or should I say nano-wonder?) that we patients are acerbic at times…