Scientists at the National University of Singapore have developed a new wireless reader to read health signals from microsensors less than 1mm long. The reader is so sensitive to minute changes in a sensor’s readings that it enables the creation of sub-millimeter microsensors, tiny enough to be injected under the skin.
The reader can read a microsensor that is 0.9 millimeters in diameter while implanted underneath the skin using a syringe. During the experiments, scientists found that the reader was able to monitor the rate of breathing and heart rate by detecting subtle movements of the battery-free microsensor.
Assistant Professor John Ho said, “We hope that our breakthrough will be a trailblazer for the future of minimally invasive health monitoring solutions where patients are immediately alerted whenever their physiological conditions such as heart rate and blood glucose cross a critical threshold.”
“Now that we have proven the viability of our reader, the next step is to develop a suite of passive (battery-free) microsensors that can monitor various physiological parameters such as glucose, bioelectrical activity, and blood chemistry.”