Creating glucose-sensing microbeads

Cell cultures need glucose for energy, but too much sugar can create a diabetic-like environment and unwanted structural changes. Standard methods to monitor glucose are invasive and time-consuming. A team of engineers at the National University of Singapore and Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics is developing an alternative approach that takes advantage of new microfluidic techniques. The researchers created small droplets of polymer that encapsulated pairs of fluorescing molecules. These microbeads are added to cell cultures where, in the presence of glucose, they emit a stronger fluorescent signal. "The method is simple, inexpensive and produces glucose-sensing microbeads of different sizes," says Dieter Trau, assistant professor at the National University of Singapore. "Our work automates the process of microbead preparation onto a single narrow chip -- with minimal use of reagents."