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Scil Tech
Page 5A • Thursday, September 18, 2003
‘Smart tattoo’ makes life easier
Diabetics can measure glucose without pricking finger
By Kyle Ross
THE BATTALION
Researchers at Texas A&M are devel-
t originality: a grot: 0 pj n g technology that will give diabetics a
new way to monitor their glucose levels. A
“smart tattoo” that changes color intensity
depending on glucose levels is being
developed by Gerard Cote, associate pro
fessor for the Department of Biomedical
Engineering at A&M.
The National Institute of Health states
that more than 100 million people world
wide are afflicted w ith diabetes, 17 million
of whom are from the United States.
About 19 percent of all deaths in the
United States are diabetes-related, making
it the sixth leading cause of death among
people aged 25 years or older. Cote said he
hopes his technology will help people
manage their glucose levels, effectively
preventing the progression of diabetic
complications such as eye. kidney, heart
and nerve disease.
“It is actually fluorescent particles that
we hope to implant underneath the skin,"
Cote said.
The particles are polyethylene glycol
beads that have a fluorescent coating.
Glucose displaces the fluorescent mole
cules, therefore when the glucose level is
low, the fluorescence is high.
It is recommended that glucose levels
be checked six or more times a day.
Currently, diabetics have to test their
blood sugar level using finger-prick instru
ments. Because of the pain and inconven
ience of testing, many diabetics fall short
of correctly monitoring their glucose lev
els. The “smart tattoo” would eliminate
the need for such invasive devices.
Nicole Parish, a 25-year-old Bryan
High School teacher and 20-year diabetic,
says she greatly dislikes the current glu
cose monitoring methods.
“I hate, 1 hate, 1 hate checking my
blood sugar. I hate pricking my finger all
day long. For me it's the hardest thing to
deal with having this disease,” Parish said.
But the days of finger-pricking may
soon be coming to an end. Once the fluo
rescent beads are implanted, according to
Cote, the change in glucose levels would
be detected noninvasively by an external
device that may be as small as a watch.
A sensor examines the light emitted
from the tattoo. The higher the intensity of
the light, the higher the glucose level.
Cote said he feels that the varying intensi
ty of the displaced fluorescence will be
just as accurate as current monitoring
devices.
The idea. Cote said, is that the particles,
along with the external device after cali
bration, would replace the finger-sticking
instrument for the day-to-day readings.
One of the features of this technology
that allows it to work is its fundamental
difference from common ink tattoos.
“A normal tattoo is made of ink parti
cles that get taken up by the cells, and our
particles are intended to be in the intersti
tial space, not in the cells,” Cote said.
The ink in standard tattoos is small
enough to be absorbed into the cells of the
skin, but the fluorescent particles are much
bigger. This allows the particles to occupy
the interstitial fluid surrounding the cells,
which is important because the glucose
levels in the interstitial fluid are directly
related to the levels in the blood.
Cote says the particles would last about
one year before needing to be replaced and
would need to be injected in a part of the
body where continuous exposure to the
sun could be avoided.
Cote acquired his idea for this technol
ogy when he was attending a conference
where a doctor, who removes tattoos with
lasers, joked that “it would be nice to have
a tattoo that actually did something.”
“I was working in the glucose monitor
ing area and so 1 thought why not a glu
cose monitor” Cote said. “We have since
got funding from NSF-REU
Interdisciplinary Chemistry Research
Program, Texas ARP (Advanced Research
Program), and most recently NASA to fur
ther the idea.”
In the end, it is up to the individual to
decide what glucose monitoring method
he or she prefers. But as Parish said, com
pared to endless finger-pricking, “getting a
little tattoo would be a small price to pay.”
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