kc bob: Diabetes, Google and Contact Lenses

My first wife had diabetes. So I my interest was peaked when I heard about Google's Smart Contact Lens Project that involves the monitoring of sugar levels in tear drops through contact lenses. Here is a clip from their blog:

We’re now testing a smart contact lens that’s built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material. We’re testing prototypes that can generate a reading once per second. We’re also investigating the potential for this to serve as an early warning for the wearer, so we’re exploring integrating tiny LED lights that could light up to indicate that glucose levels have crossed above or below certain thresholds. It’s still early days for this technology, but we’ve completed multiple clinical research studies which are helping to refine our prototype. We hope this could someday lead to a new way for people with diabetes to manage their disease.

This could be an amazing revolution for folks who are now pricking their fingers for blood tests. I so hope that something like this could one day be the norm. Of course it would even be better it researchers come up with a cure!