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Australian researchers hope the low-cost saliva test will replace the current needle-based test for diabetics.
Australian scientists say they have developed a painless blood sugar test for diabetics, a non-invasive dipstick that checks glucose levels through saliva.
For people with diabetes, managing their blood sugar usually means pricking their fingers several times a day with a lancet and then placing a drop of blood on a test strip. Naturally, some diabetics avoid the painful process by minimizing their tests.
However, the latter test works by incorporating an enzyme that detects glucose into a transistor that can then transmit the presence of glucose, according to Paul Dastoor, professor of physics at Newcastle University in Australia, who led the team that l ‘created.
He said the tests create the prospect of painless, low-cost blood sugar testing that should lead to much better results for people with diabetes.
“Your saliva contains glucose and this glucose concentration tracks your blood sugar. But that’s about a 100 times lower concentration, which means we had to develop a low cost test that was easy to manufacture, but which has about 100 times the sensitivity of the standard blood glucose test, ”said Dastoor at Al Jazeera.
A non-invasive, printable diabetic saliva test strip is seen at Newcastle University, New South Wales, Australia [Courtesy of University of Newcastle via Reuters]
Since the electronic materials of the transistor are inks, the test can be performed by low cost printing.
“The materials we work with are remarkable, they are electronic inks which can act like electronic equipment, but the difference is that we can print them on a large scale using a roll-to-roll printer, the same as the one you use to make newspapers. “said Dastoor.
The project secured AU $ 6.3 million ($ 4.7 million) in funding from the Australian government to establish a facility to produce the test kits if the clinical trials were successful.
Dastoor says the technology could also be transferred to COVID-19 testing and testing for allergens, hormones and cancer.
The university is already working with Harvard University on a test for COVID-19 using the same technology.
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