Colour-changing material offers glucose management possibilities

A new type of colour-changing continuous glucose monitoring material with numerous advanced applications has been created by a US team.

The University of Illinois engineers have developed a sensor made from hydrogel and laced with boronic acid compounds, which bind to glucose and cause the gel to swell and expand as concentrations rise.

This in turn causes photonic crystals also contained within the gel to reflect different colours of light, meaning the hue will change as glucose levels fluctuate.

It is thought that the wavelength shift is so precise that doctors and patients may be able to use it for automatic insulin dosing, something is not possible using current point measurements such as test strips.

Study leader Paul Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, said: "The sensor would be put on the end of a fibre optic cable, for example, and threaded into the bloodstream along with IVs or other monitors … Then you can monitor the patient for several days or longer."

This comes after a team from Princeton University detailed a new method of using a laser to non-invasively measure blood sugar last week.