A team of scientists at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have developed the world’s smallest medical implant to monitor critical chemicals in the blood. The 14mm device measures up to five indicators, including proteins like troponin, that show if and when a heart attack has occurred. Using Bluetooth, the device can then transmit the data to a smartphone for tracking. The device can also track levels of glucose, lactate, and ATP, providing valuable data for physiologic monitoring during activity, or in possible disease conditions like diabetes. As far as tricorders go, this device may be the one you have been waiting for, provided you are on board for the implant.

Outside the body, a battery patch provides the 100 milliwatts of power that the device requires by wireless inductive charging through the skin.(See: How wireless charging works.) Each sensor is coated with an enzyme that reacts with blood-borne chemicals to generate a detectable signal. For patient monitoring, a device like this would quickly become indispensable once introduced. In cancer treatment for example, exact dosing is critical. Numerous blood tests are often required to calibrate the treatment according the to the patient’s particular ability to break down and excrete the drug. Often these parameters change when the disease, or the therapy, directly affects the organs involved in these processes — typically this would mean the liver and the kidneys.

Often in the hours before a heart attack, fatigued or oxygen-starved muscle begins to break down, and fragments of a heart-specific smooth muscle protein, the troponin mentioned above, are dumped into the blood. If this can be detected before disruption of the heart rhythm, or the actual attack, lifesaving preemptive treatment can be initiated sooner. To be fail-safe, this depends on the patient having access to their data. Dependence on the integrity of multiple weak links to the cloud, to the doctor, and back again — as is often the prescribed future care scenario — are unacceptable, particularly when heart attacks might be counted on to occur precisely at those times when those links may not be there. Assuming the battles for patient rights will be won sooner rather than later, the next important choice would be getting the proper ringtone when that fateful troponin call comes. A standard ringtone with universal appeal would let bystanders know what was going on and assistance could, at least in theory, be had.

At the moment the device has a limited number of sensors, but there is no theoretical ceiling on this. Nor is there a limit to the kinds of enzymatic reactions or other detectors that could be used with those sensor channels. In the muscle breakdown scenario, for example, multiple products are in fact continuously generated in a tissue-specific manner which can give valuable information to athletes, and weekend enthusiasts alike. Ions and respiratory gases in the blood at different body locations can also be mapped. When coupled with powerful analysis packages, a device like this could help make the patient the customer once again. For now, the device is limited to the lifetime of the enzymes — typically after a month or two they can be considered expired. For all the patent trolls out there, this may be a good time to pen your imaginary device that includes provisions for rapid, and hopefully painless, deimplantation.

As a final note, it should be observed that the EPFL device is not the only one on the horizon. Tricorder-style blood scanners are just beginning to gain a foothold in the medical community. A new $100 million research fund has just been announced by Blackberry mastermind Mike Lazaridis. The new fund is called Quantum Valley Investments, and is emphasizing all things quantum. Based at the Lazaridis Quantum-Nano headquarters in Ontario, the focus will also include quantum sensors, quantum computing, and perhaps one new tantalization for our collective tricorder imagination — acoustic cell sorting.

Now read: Turning the smartphone from a telephone into a tricorder