VeriChip, everyone's favorite implantable-RFID-tag company, announced plans to develop a glucose-monitoring tag yesterday for diabetics. VeriChip expects to put the sensor through preliminary clinical trials within 30 months.
According to a white paper released yesterday, the device has three parts: a passive transponder, integrated circuitry, and a glucose sensor, which can calculate the proportion of glucose in the bloodstream. From what I understand, some glucose molecules seep in through a semipermeable membrane and enter a chamber containing a substance that glucose can bind to. The glucose has to fend off a "competition component," and the outcome of that interaction indicates how much glucose is in the bloodstream. Another part of the system detects the mass of the glucose that successfully binds to whatever substance they've chosen and records that in the chip for communication to the outside world.
It's pretty exciting technology, if they can get it to work, and could make for much simpler glucose monitoring without requiring blood samples. Here's what we've had to say about the ethical issues surrounding implantable chips.
