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Smart CONTACT LENSES could improve your eyesight while monitoring conditions like diabetes and stroke by measuring chemicals in tear fluid
- New contact lens design comes from researchers in the UK, US and China
- It has a mesh sensor that measures light, temperature and glucose levels
- At the same time, the team said, it doesn’t affect vision or the ability to blink.
- Future versions may see new test functions and wireless antennas added
In addition to improving your vision, a new smart contact lens design could monitor conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, a study reported.
Researchers from the UK, US and China developed the lens, which includes a mesh sensor layer capable of measuring light, temperature, and even glucose levels in tears.
The latter has utility beyond monitoring diabetes, the team said, with complications from stroke and heart disease closely related to disturbances in blood sugar regulation.
The design, the team said, does not alter the wearer’s vision or ability to blink and may be adapted in the future to facilitate retinal function testing as well.
The lenses could even have power modules and antennas, potentially allowing the lens to transmit data wirelessly to a computer for analysis.
In addition to improving your vision, a new smart contact lens design could monitor conditions like diabetes, heart disease and strokes, a study reported (stock image)
Researchers from the UK, US and China developed the lens (pictured left on an artificial eye), which has a mesh sensor layer (shown in yellow, right) that can measure levels of light, temperature and even glucose in tears to monitor for health complications
“The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the entire scientific community,” Yunlong Zhao, author and bioelectronics expert, University of Surrey Institute for Advanced Technology, told The Times.
Many of us, he added, have “asked how our work could help those suffering from similar future medical emergencies.”
“We are confident that devices that use our sensor layer system could be used as a non-invasive way to help monitor and diagnose people’s health.
“Our ultra-thin sensor layer is different from conventional smart contact lenses,” author and engineer Shiqi Guo of Harvard University told The Times.
These lens designs typically feature “rigid or bulk sensors and circuit chips that are sandwiched between two layers of contact lenses and come into contact with tear fluids through microfluidic detection channels.”
In the new lens design, however, the serpentine sensor mesh comes into direct contact with the tears – comes with “easy assembly, high detection sensitivity, good biocompatibility, and mechanical robustness,” added the Dr Guo.
“Plus, it doesn’t interfere with blinking or seeing,” he says.
The design, the team said, does not alter the wearer’s vision or ability to blink and may be adapted in the future to facilitate retinal function testing as well. In the photo: the serpentine mesh, shown on the left, with the three different sensor modalities and, on the right, the complete lens itself
The lens is one of a number of efforts to develop a “ smart ” contact lens – whether it is to monitor blood sugar or come in the form of a flexible robot that can allow the wearer to zoom in. turn signal.
One design – from California start-up Mojo Vision and featuring a UK-built processor – includes a small LED display that contains 300 pixels in half a square millimeter that can display content streamed to the wearer from its phone.
“ We need to create something that shows you information that doesn’t distract you, helps you, goes away when you don’t need it, and stays off when you don’t want it, ” said Steve Sinclair, Mojo’s product manager at The Times. .
The full results of the study were published in the journal Matter.
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