HIGH blood sugar levels can be detected within five minutes by a monitor
implanted under the skin. The brainchild of American researchers, the monitor
will greatly improve diabetics’ control over their sugar levels.
Jerome Schultz and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh in
Pennsylvania designed the monitor as a semi-permeable hollow tube, 5 millimetres
long and 0.5 millimetres in diameter. The tube is filled with tiny hollow beads
made of a permeable carbohydrate called dextrin and fluorescent proteins.
The beads are dyed to absorb blue light. Inside the beads is a form of
glucose that will attract the proteins…
