Nature-Inspired Contact Lenses for Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Type 1 Diabetic Children (360G-Wellcome-201929_Z_16_Z)

Over 3.9 million people suffer from diabetes in the UK and living with it is extremely hard; the diabetics need to regularly monitor their glucose concentrations in blood by pricking their fingers up to five times a day. This process is painful and it has low patient compliance, particularly among type 1 diabetic children. While researchers have tried creating biomaterials to detect glucose concentrations in body fluids such as tears, saliva and urine. We propose to develop contact lenses that change colour based on the variation in the concentrations of glucose in tears. This will be very useful for continuous monitoring of glucose concentrations by only visually observing the eye colour (via smart phone apps). The contact lenses will be developed using the functionalised biocompatible hydrogels, which change their index due to the changes in glucose concentrations. As these hydrogels are transparent, the colour changes will be produced by surface texturing them with arrays of nanostepped-pyramids. Such nanostepped-pyramids are inspired from 3D Christmas tree like structures, which account for the bright blue colours displayed by Morpho butterflies. This hybrid combination will provide a unique platform for producing contact lenses which reversibly sense analytes in tears for disease diagnosis and monitoring.