Diabetic patients ‘draw on skin’ for on-demand diagnostics

A new range of biosensor-laden inks (bio-inks) could soon help diabetic patients monitor their blood sugar through a doodle on their skin.

Scientists from the University of California, San Diego, filled off-the-shelf ballpoint pens with enzymatic inks that, when drawn on the skin, can take glucose readings and deliver results via a Bluetooth device.

The bio-inks could eliminate the need for painful finger pricks to draw blood as the sensors within them can take glucose readings through skin.

The bio-inks are made mainly from the enzymes glucose oxidase, which responds to blood glucose, and tyrosinase, which responds to common pollutants known as phenols.

Investigators estimated one pen could hold enough bio-ink to write the equivalent of about 500 blood glucose sensor strips and could save diabetic patients a considerable amount of money.

However, the bio-inks could be modified to react with many other pollutants, such as heavy metals or pesticides, and can be drawn on a variety of surfaces such as smartphone cases and building windows.

The ability to directly draw biocatalytic conducting traces, even on unconventional surfaces, opens up new avenues in various sensing applications in low-resource settings and holds great promise for diverse healthcare, environmental, and defense domains.

Researchers from the Department of NanoEngineering, University of California, San Diego published their results in the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials.