I-Corps: Portable sensors using the widely available personal glucose monitor

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

The team proposes to leverage the widely-available and inexpensive personal glucose meter (PGM) and enable it for the detection of non-glucose targets with a particular focus on the glycated hemoglobin HbA1c in diabetic patients. While numerous sensors have been proposed and reported in the literature, few sensors have been commercialized for on-site and real-time quantitative detection of a wide-range of targets at home and in the field. Perhaps the most successful of such sensors is the PGM as a result of > 30 years of scientific research and engineering effort. However, PGMs can detect only a single target--glucose. Taking advantage of a recent breakthrough in the PI's group in demonstrating the use of functional DNA (DNAzymes and aptamers) conjugated to an enzyme invertase, the team can now enable any PGM to detect a wide range of targets from recreational drugs like cocaine to disease markers like interferon-gamma of tuberculosis to toxic metal ions like uranium. The team proposes to translate this NSF-supported fundamental research into marketable products by focusing on developing a new at-home test for diabetic patients while taking advantage of an existing platform and established distribution channel. While glycated hemoglobin HbA1c is a clinically proven marker for diabetic patients, testing for it is mostly administered in central labs. The combination of a PGM with functional DNA is a simple and novel application that can revolutionize the way people perform at-home and in-field tests, making medical diagnostics significantly easier and cheaper. If the team is successful with this first application, the same technology can be expanded into dozens of new assays for other targets such as infectious diseases and human cancer and heavy metal ions and pathogens in water and food, all of which leverage the same commonly available PGMs. In making the technology easily accessible to the public through the widely available PGM, this project will make it possible to realize the potential of personal medicine.