Google

First Google wanted your search traffic, now it wants your blood.

The company has filed a patent for a "needle-free blood draw" system that can act as a wearable or a hand-held device to remove a small amount of blood from the body.


Instead of using the traditional needle to draw blood the proposed system is gas-based, and will suck the blood into a very small barrel. The patent, which is still pending, suggests the device may be used for testing blood sugar levels and be able to take blood automatically or manually.

The examples presented by Google show a small cylindrical device being used on a person's fingertip or as a wrist-worn device, suggesting a future version of Android Wear might have advanced biometric capabilities. The potential device works by sending an "abrupt surge" of gas into a barrel that houses a micro-particle, which pierces the skin.

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When the skin has been broken, Google says: "A resulting micro-emergence of blood can be drawn into the negative pressure barrel."

The company does not include what specific medical application the needle-free process may be used for but it may be the latest in the company's work to help diabetics monitor their blood sugar levels. "Such an application might be used to draw a small amount of blood, for example, for a glucose test," the patent reads. Patents often do not lead to the immediate development of commercial products, so it is unclear if this will reach market in the near future.

Google


The Google's Life Sciences team, working as part of the recently created parent company Alphabet, has already developed a number of items designed to help diabetics. In 2014 the lab unveiled smart contact lenses that include circuitry to monitor glucose levels.

It is also making bandage-sized glucose monitors that detect sugar levels and could be disposable, the Verge has reported. Other diabetes work from outside of Google has seen a bionic pancreas be developed that could stopthose living with the disease having to monitor insulin levels at all, and holographic sensors that can measure the relevant data.

The World Health Organisation estimates that nine percent of adults aged over 18 live with diabetes and in 2015 a total of 1.5 million deaths were caused by the chronic disease. Other companies are also interested in finding more elegant solutions to living with the condition; Tasso, a company funded by Darpa, has already developed an "almost entirely painless" blood withdrawal system that doesn't use needles. In a similar way to the Google design Tasso's device draws blood by using a vacuum.