News & Research

    College of Staten Island, City University of New York, Staten Island, New York

Molecularly imprinted hybrid nanogels for glucose sensing and continuous monitoring

General Research Subject: Both Type 1 And Type 2 Diabetes

Focus: Clinical Therapeutics/New Technology\Glucose Monitoring and Sensing, Clinical Therapeutics/New Technology\Insulin Delivery Systems

Type of Grant: Basic Science

Project Start Date: January 1, 2012

Project End Date: December 31, 2014

Research Description

Current treatment of diabetes consists of self-regulation of blood glucose levels through frequent blood glucose testing and a combination of insulin administration. However, frequent self-monitoring of blood glucose is difficult, given the time, the inconvenience, and the typically painful finger prick to draw blood sample. A continuous and reliable blood glucose monitoring is highly desirable to help diabetics easily manage their glucose levels and to create an artificial pancreas that can sense the glucose level in the bloodstream and automatically provide insulin as necessary. Although current enzyme-based approach is straightforward to measure the glucose level in blood sample, it faces much more challenges for continuous monitoring, with typical limitations of instability, slow sensor time lags, and high cost. This proposal aims to develop a new glucose sensing technology, based on molecularly imprinted glucose responsive inorganic-polymer hybrid nanogels, for real-time continuous glucose monitoring. Unlike enzyme-based approach, the newly proposed receptor-based glucose-imprinted hybrid nanogels with immobilized inorganic nanoparticles as optical code have several advantages, including excellent stability and reproducibility, selective and sensitive binding to glucose, and rapid transduction of the glucose concentrations into an easily measurable optical signal through a change in the light absorption intensity and wavelength, which could be even visually observable as color changes. The proposed research will develop and optimize these small hybrid nanogels so that they can serve as a potential probe to be implanted in contact with the bloodstream and read glucose level remotely at a real-time with a small external device."

Research Profile

What area of diabetes research does your project cover? What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and or/curing diabetes?

My project covers the development of a new glucose sensing technology, based on molecularly imprinted glucose responsive inorganic-polymer hybrid nanogels, for real-time continuous glucose monitoring in bloodstream and tear fluid. A continuous and reliable blood glucose monitoring is highly desirable to help diabetics easily manage their glucose levels and to promote the artificial pancreas devices for simultaneous diagnosis and self-regulated insulin therapy, a hope lingering for decades in diabetes research. Although current enzyme-based approach is straightforward to measure the glucose level in blood sample, it faces much more challenges for continuous monitoring, with typical limitations of instability, slow sensor time lags, and high cost. The newly proposed receptor-based glucose-imprinted hybrid nanogels with immobilized inorganic nanoparticles as optical code have several advantages for glucose sensors, including excellent stability and reproducibility, selective and sensitive binding to glucose, and rapid transduction of the glucose level into an easily measurable optical signal.  

If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?

Current treatment of diabetes consists of self-regulation of blood glucose levels through frequent blood glucose testing and a combination of lifestyle change, medication, and insulin administration, depending on the type of diabetes. It's recommended that diabetics self-monitor their blood glucose frequently. Many patients must do it several times each day. However, the frequent self-monitoring of blood glucose is difficult, given the time, the inconvenience, and the typical painful finger prick to draw blood for a test sample. The successful accomplishment of my project will allow us to develop a new class of glucose biosensors with a wide array of desirable properties for real-time continuous glucose monitoring in an easily readable optical signal, which could be even visually observable by naked eye as a color change. These small and robust hybrid nanogel sensors could become realistic candidates to be ultimately developed into a practical miniature device for remote continuous glucose monitoring or fabricated into an artificial pancreas device that can sense the glucose level in the bloodstream and automatically provide insulin as necessary. Thus, this project will improve the life quality of diabetics significantly through an easy management of diabetes.

Why is it important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play in your research efforts?

Living in NY City and teaching at CUNY, I have seen that diabetes is not anymore an adult disease but also seriously affecting the children and young people. Current management or treatment of diabetes requires frequent blood glucose monitoring, which is very challenging considering the time, the inconvenience, and the typical painful finger prick to draw blood sample, especially for young students. These problems have driven me to think about a new glucose sensing technology that can continuously monitor the blood glucose in a noninvasive or minimal invasive format to reduce the pain and inconvenience of diabetic patients. I have been doing researches in optically active nanoparticles and responsive polymers for more than a decade. I personally think it is very important for me to join the diabetes research so that I can provide new insights from a different discipline (or research expertise) into the development of continuous glucose sensing technology. This award will play a very significant role in my research efforts. Although we have obtained some promising preliminary research results, this award enables us to continuously explore the potential of the molecularly imprinted glucose responsive inorganic-polymer hybrid nanogels for practical and reliable continuous glucose monitoring systems.

In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?

In the future, we will study how to improve these small hybrid nanogel probes in terms of compositions, size, shape, biocompatibility, and functions for real time continuous glucose monitoring in vivo in animal model. We will explore the potential of these small sized hybrid nanogels for simultaneous optical imaging and intracellular glucose detection, which could provide important information for the pathophysiological studies of diabetes complications. We will also develop the inorganic-polymer hybrid nanogels to integrate the optical glucose sensing and glucose-responsive insulin release for simultaneous diagnosis of diabetes and self-regulated insulin therapy.