Painless diabetes patch to replace needle pricks

Imagine a painless patch that continuously sends your health status to your phone. A team of researchers from the University of Waterloo is on a mission to deliver just that by developing next-generation technologies that can monitor and dispatch personalized medicine. 

Through the IDEATION Lab , the team has developed mini patches - smaller than the size of a band aid - to continuously monitor blood glucose and ketone levels in patients with Type 1 diabetes and deliver real-time results to their smart phone or health care provider. 

This health-tech breakthrough could mean the end to invasive and painful needle pricks.  

"What distinguishes our patches from solid needles is that they are fully painless and compatible with the skin... they’re made out of hydrogels" says Dr. Mahla Poudineh, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "These patches are solid before skin penetration, but upon insertion they start swelling by absorbing the fluid underneath the skin, which would make them flexible and quite compatible with the skin." 

Poudineh explains that at a time when there’s no continuous ketone monitoring available, this technology is especially important for patients with Type 1 diabetes who not only have to monitor their blood glucose, but their ketone levels also. These patches would reduce the risk of diabetic ketoacidosis - a dangerous condition when ketone levels are elevated - since patients will be alerted when levels are high.   

Having validated the patches using animal models, the team received approval from the Institutional Review Board and has begun human testing in non-diabetic adults who were asked to take a ketone supplement for effective monitoring.

"We are in the observational study phase right now to see how these patches are performing in humans. Having received a lot of interest during our recruitment, the results are quite promising," she says. 

The next phase would be another round of validation in patients with diabetes to be done in collaboration with their clinical collaborators at Stanford University. This research is supported by Breakthrough T1D (formerly Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), a prominent international organization dedicated to advancing diabetes research. 

In addition to its application to people living with diabetes, the same patches are being advanced for continuous monitoring of other health conditions like cardiovascular disease and lactate. This work is being done through a collaboration with Dr. Leyla Soleymani’s research group at McMaster University.  

"Beyond the area of diabetes, we have developed a patch for continuous lactate monitoring using Aptamer probes," Poudineh says. "The good thing about Aptamers [a special type of probe made of DNA] is that they can be selected for any target molecule. This addresses the limitation of enzyme-based sensors - like current continuous glucose monitors - which are restricted to targets with available enzymes." 

Having validated the Aptamer on animal models, the team has also begun human continuous lactate monitoring, which would be particularly useful to athletes who want to ensure they are conducting their exercises at their optimum condition.  

Currently, athletes would have to stop their exercise to do a blood lactate measurement, which is not the exact blood lactate level during exercises. These wearable Aptamer sensors would enable athletes to continuously monitor their lactate as they progress through their exercise.  

To bring the technology to the market, the team of Waterloo and McMaster researchers recently launched a spin-off company, Aptec Health, to make real-time continuous monitoring a reality.