EAGER: Portable photoacoustic platform for glucose sensing

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Proposal: 1445342PI: Mirov, SergeyUniversity: University of Alabama at BirminghamTitle: EAGER: Portable photoacoustic platform for glucose sensingThe PI proposes to develop and build a working prototype of a true noninvasive, portable hand held, low cost device for blood glucose level monitoring in home or clinic settings. If successful, this device will substantially improve the quality of life of millions of people with diabetes by eliminating discomfort and pain associated with the necessity to puncture fingers, and reduce the probability of developing chronic diabetes complications due to poor management of blood glucose levels. The device could be also used for continuous blood glucose level monitoring in clinic and hospital settings. The proposed platform can also be used for development of other applications such as detection and monitoring of chemicals of interest in aqueous solutions for environmental studies, and in industrial settings.The device will be based on a wavelength modulation (WM) photoacoustic (PA) spectroscopy in the near-infra-red (IR) spectral region. It will consist of a portable acoustic cell, a portable broadly tunable diode pumped Cr:ZnSe laser, pioneered by the PI group, and a smartphone for measurements control and data analysis. This novel wavelength modulation technique is essentially a zero background method, which will substantially improve sensitivity of current photoacoustic methods for glucose level monitoring. The absence of a strong background due to water absorption will not only improve sensitivity of the device, but also eliminate the necessity to perform arduous data treatment algorithms for extracting weak glucose absorption signals masked under a strong background. This will enable the use of devices with low computational power, such as smartphones.