Sometimes, big ideas mean thinking small. Really small. Thanks to work at UC San Diego, clunky devices required to monitor medical conditions (think blood pressure cuffs or blood sugar monitors) are shrinking. And with this miniaturization, the number of data streams that can be continuously collected and analyzed is exploding — as is the benefit for health care professionals and the general public.
Imagine being able to wear a small patch on your arm that can continually run most of the lab tests you do once a year, at best. UC San Diego teams of engineers and medical researchers are well on their way to creating a new era of actionable health and wellness information, with recent wearable breakthroughs like a system to measure your blood pressure and blood sugar levels in real time, while also letting you know if you’ve had too much to drink and how fatigued your muscles are during a workout. Or a wristband that could significantly improve diabetes management by continuously tracking glucose and other chemical and cardiovascular signals that influence disease progression and overall health. Or even a small electronic sticker placed on an everyday object, such as a tumbler, that can monitor your vitamin C levels using the sweat from your fingertips. Such knowledge, potentially gathered before symptoms present, can revolutionize preventative care.
“This is like a complete lab on the skin,” says Joseph Wang, a professor of nanoengineering and a co-director of the Center for Wearable Sensors at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
With sensors that can continuously monitor numerous biomarkers simultaneously to track health and wellness, managing multiple medical conditions — and optimizing your health — can become a seamless part of daily activities, regardless of whether a person is at home, at work or even outside.
