Electricity instead of drugs: ETH implant breaks down excess blood sugar
A catalyst made of gold, platinum and graphite converts excess glucose in the body. In diabetic mice, the wirelessly powered implant regulated blood sugar and worked reliably for six weeks.
Archive image · Photo: Alessandro Della Bella / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Researchers at ETH Zurich led by Martin Fussenegger of the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering in Basel have developed an electronic implant that breaks down excess blood sugar directly. An electrically driven catalyst converts glucose into gluconate, which is excreted in urine. The study, with first author Debasis Maity, appeared in the journal Science; ETH reported on it on 22 October.
The catalyst needs no cells or enzymes: it consists of graphite felt studded with gold nanoclusters carrying even smaller platinum particles. It is powered wirelessly at 13.56 megahertz. A standard glucose sensor reports readings via Bluetooth to a smartphone or smartwatch, which switches the catalyst on – once the target level is reached, it switches off. In the lab, the system converted glucose in five litres of solution, roughly the blood volume of a human.
In diabetic mice, blood sugar could be precisely regulated; the animals lost weight, tolerated the implant well, and it worked reliably for six weeks. "The system operates at a very low voltage, and our experiments showed no evidence of tissue damage from either electrical or thermal effects," says Fussenegger. The method has not yet been tested in humans.