Google just can’t resist making anything and everything. The latest addition in Google’s arsenal is a contact lens which employs a wireless chip and a mini glucose sensor and will be able, as you would have already guessed, to monitor the blood sugar level.
This research has been going on for some years now in different research centers around the world. However, Google has become the first company in the world to bring it out as a product.
Google has started testing of the contact lens which will be able to measure the glucose level in tears and therefore, enable the user to tackle this disease. Google X Laboratory is being employed for the research and project team is being led by Babak Parvis and Brian Otis. This team came up with a wireless chip and a mini glucose sensor which was then embedded between two layers of contact lens material. This is what led to the development of a prototype, which as per Google, is able to provide a reading for the glucose level every second and considering everything, we would say that it is quite an impressive achievement.
The key idea here is to discard reactive monitoring and make use of proactive monitoring. Google is now focusing on how to warn the user of abnormal glucose levels. The idea under scrutiny is to employ small LED lights which would be illuminated when glucose level is at risk. The potential for smart contact lens for those who are diabetic was fully realized in 2009 when engineered nanoparticles were used in conjunction with hydrogel lens by Professor Jin Zhang from the University of Western Ontario.
While Google admits that it is still quite far away from actually bringing this gadget to the market, it is still hopeful that it will be able to achieve that soon enough. Google has carried out a lot of clinical research studies and is now submitting the product to FDA for approval. So yes, we are hopeful that we will be witnessing this gadget out in the market soon enough!
