GlucoScreen: A Smartphone-based Readerless Glucose Test Strip for Prediabetes Screening

Researchers at the University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and UW Medicine have developed GlucoScreen, a prototype system that leverages the capacitive touch sensing capabilities of any smartphone to measure blood glucose levels without the need for a separate reader. As with conventional glucose testing, the user applies a drop of blood to a test strip, where it reacts with enzymes on the strip. But instead of requiring a glucometer to process the results, GlucoScreen incorporates inexpensive circuitry that transmits the test data from the strip to a smartphone for processing via simulated taps on the phone’s touch screen. The strip’s operation is powered entirely by the phone’s flash; no batteries or USB connection are required. This novel approach would make prediabetes screening less costly and more accessible — enabling one-time screening on a large scale — and could potentially be expanded to enable smartphone-based screening of other health conditions in the future. This video is closed captioned.