Wearable on the face "laboratory" allows you to replace a blood test

Engineers Fluid Interfaces Group ofMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created a wearable sensor that is attached to the cheek of a person and collects information on the concentration of certain biological markers in saliva in real time. The developers of the device on the MIT website note that such a device can save a person from the need for blood tests. It is equipped with a compact biomechanical paper sensor that responds to substances of interest in saliva, allowing you to monitor the state of the body.

A blood test is enougha reliable way to find out what is happening and in what state the human body as a whole is in and its individual organs in particular. However, a blood test is not always convenient, it is difficult to carry out constantly, despite the fact that some studies require monitoring changes in the concentration of certain substances in the body during the day. At the same time, there are already alternative methods for determining the concentration of certain chemicals in the body. For example, “smart patches” were invented to determine the same glucose level in the blood.

Scientists from the Massachusetts TechnologyInstitute to apply a similar alternative approach, creating a sensor that other researchers or doctors could use to conduct ongoing analysis of patients' health. The device consists of a roll of paper, a small electric motor, a camera and a tube adjacent to the lip. When the saliva with elements, the concentration of which is monitored by the attending physician, gets on the paper, it changes its color. From time to time a camera mounted on the sensor takes a picture of the paper and sends the pictures to the user's smartphone.

A roll of paper spins up with a smallelectric motor after each measurement and it must be periodically replaced. In addition to the substance sensor, the device also houses an inertial sensor that tracks patient movements.

Device developers note that it canadd other components, such as a GPS signal receiver, to track patient movement and detect correlations between biochemical parameters and location The authors plan to tell the technical details of the development at the EMBC 2019 conference in July 2019.

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