Patches seem to be all the rage these days. There are birth control patches, nicotine patches, and transdermal medicinal patches, just to name a few. Now, a team of researchers led by Beomjoon Kim at the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo have developed a patch of needles connected to a paper sensor for diagnosing conditions such as prediabetes. Luckily, this patch doesn't multiply the pain and discomfort of a single hypodermic needle. In fact, these microneedles are painless and biodegradable.

In this research, a new polymer substrate for glucose colorimetric sensing was developed with electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) and 3,3’,5’,5’-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) hybrid micro/nanofibers. Biodegradable polymer PCL and chromogen TMB were combined in electrospinning process so that fibers consisted with PCL and TMB with diameters ranging from several hundreds of nanometers to several micrometers were achieved. With the piling up of micro/nanofibers, a flexible substrate with porous inner structure was formed up. After air-plasma treatment and loading of enzymes for colorimetric reaction, the substrate could be used for colorimetric assay. Compared to conventional paper-based sensing substrates, the electrospun substrate achieved better immobilization of chromogen so that a higher sensitivity. Also, the morphology of electrospun substrate could be tuned to meet potential further sensing requirements.

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A patch of microneedles, each less than 1 mm in length, painlessly samples fluid from the skin and quickly reports glucose levels using a paper sensor with a color scale