新科技:一種可以檢測(cè)血糖的隱形眼鏡

When it comes to keeping your blood sugar in check, people with diabetes have limited options.

說起對(duì)血糖進(jìn)行實(shí)時(shí)監(jiān)控的手段時(shí)，糖尿病患者的選擇十分有限。

Medical researchers have been searching for a noninvasive alternative to the self-administered fingerprick test, or a continuous monitor with a sensor worn under the skin. Now a team of Korean researchers think they have a solution: a contact lens that keeps tabs on the glucose in your tears.

醫(yī)學(xué)研究人員一直在尋找一種無創(chuàng)的替代方法來進(jìn)行隨時(shí)隨地的自我檢測(cè)，至少發(fā)明出可以皮下佩戴的全天候傳感器?，F(xiàn)在有一支韓國研發(fā)團(tuán)隊(duì)找到了一個(gè)解決方案：用隱形眼鏡監(jiān)視眼淚中的葡萄糖含量。

Park et al., Science Advances

It's not the first time this has been proposed - back in 2014, Google announced it was working on a glucose-monitoring contact lens, but it has not yet eventuated - if it's still even under development.

這不是第一次有人想到隱形眼鏡。早在2014年，谷歌便宣布開發(fā)一種可以測(cè)血糖的隱形眼鏡，但至今尚未完成——如果它還在開發(fā)中的話。

Materials scientists Jihun Park and colleagues at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea have prototyped and tested their device on rabbits - and report that it causes no adverse reactions.

韓國蔚山國立科學(xué)和技術(shù)研究院的材料科學(xué)家Jihun Park及其同事已經(jīng)在兔子身上進(jìn)行了原型實(shí)驗(yàn)和測(cè)試，并報(bào)告說它不會(huì)引起不良反應(yīng)。

Moreover, it's soft and flexible, with only a few small rigid components, to be as comfortable as possible to the wearer. It contains neither brittle nor bulky components that could block the vision or harm the eye.

而且它柔軟又有彈性，只有極少數(shù)的剛性部件，盡可能舒適地滿足佩戴者。它既不含易碎和厚重的成分，不會(huì)阻擋視力或傷害眼睛。

The components inside the contact lens are arrayed around the edge, away from the pupil. They consist of a glucose sensor, a small, outward-facing green LED, an antenna and a rectifier, all connected by a web of superfine, flexible wires.

隱形眼鏡內(nèi)的組件圍繞邊緣排列，遠(yuǎn)離瞳孔。它們由一個(gè)葡萄糖傳感器，一個(gè)朝外的小型綠色LED，一個(gè)天線和一個(gè)整流器組成，全部由超細(xì)柔性電線連接。

The antenna and rectifier receive radiofrequency signals from a transmitter, and convert them into the tiny amount of electricity needed to power the glucose monitor and the LED.

天線和整流器接收來自發(fā)射器的射頻信號(hào)，并將其轉(zhuǎn)換成電能，滿足葡萄糖監(jiān)測(cè)器和LED微弱的電力需求。

When glucose levels spike into high, the LED - outward-facing so it doesn't interfere with vision - switches off.

當(dāng)葡萄糖水平飆升到高點(diǎn)時(shí)，朝向外的LED會(huì)被關(guān)閉，因此不會(huì)干擾到正常視物。

This means the wearer has to look into a mirror to see it, but it does work, even though glucose levels in tears are five to 10 times less concentrated than blood glucose levels.

這也意味著佩戴者不得不通過鏡子來查看自己的血糖的含量，但它確實(shí)有效，即使眼淚中的葡萄糖濃度比血糖濃度低5-10倍。

It sounds bulky, but the components inside the lens - even the rigid parts, such as the silicon pads in the glucose monitor - are only one hundredth the thickness of the lens itself.

聽起來好像很笨重，但鏡片內(nèi)部的部件——即使是剛性部件，如葡萄糖監(jiān)測(cè)器中的硅墊片，也只是鏡片本身厚度的百分之一。

The team hasn't tested the lens on humans yet, but they have tested it on rabbits. The rabbits showed no adverse reaction to the lens, the team said.

該團(tuán)隊(duì)尚未進(jìn)行人體測(cè)試，但他們已經(jīng)在兔子身上進(jìn)行了測(cè)試。報(bào)告說，兔子對(duì)鏡片沒有任何不良反應(yīng)。

This is important particularly because the glucose monitor uses the enzyme glucose oxidase to bind to sugar - and a by-product of this process is hydrogen peroxide, which could damage or irritate the eye.

這一點(diǎn)尤為重要，因?yàn)槠咸烟潜O(jiān)測(cè)儀使用葡萄糖氧化酶與糖結(jié)合 ——此過程的副產(chǎn)品是過氧化氫，可能會(huì)損傷或刺激眼球。

Not only was it tolerated just fine, but the research team found the lens also accurately tracked the rabbits' glucose levels.

它不僅安全性良好，而且研究團(tuán)隊(duì)發(fā)現(xiàn)鏡片準(zhǔn)確地追蹤了兔子的血糖水平。

There may be some way to go before contact lenses of this kind are ready for use by humans, but this proof of concept shows that it could be only a matter of time (and more hard work by scientists).

在人類可以使用之前，或許還有一段路要走，但現(xiàn)在至少表明這條路是可行的，未來只是一個(gè)時(shí)間問題(科學(xué)家們，請(qǐng)更加努力工作吧)。

"We developed a method to fabricate a soft, smart contact lens that can monitor glucose levels in tears to indicate the diabetic condition in real time through a display with wireless operations," the team wrote in their paper."The in vivo tests using a live rabbit ... provided the substantial promise of future smart contact lenses for noninvasive health care monitoring using human eyes and tears."

“使用活體兔子進(jìn)行的體內(nèi)測(cè)試……為應(yīng)用于人眼和眼淚的未來智能隱形眼鏡進(jìn)行非侵入性衛(wèi)生監(jiān)測(cè)實(shí)驗(yàn)提供了實(shí)質(zhì)性的安全承諾。”他們?cè)趫?bào)告中寫道。

The research has been published in the journal Science Advances.

該研究已發(fā)表在《科學(xué)前沿》Science Advances上。