Engineers at ETH Zurich have built an implantable device that lowers blood sugar in diabetic mice using electricity rather than insulin or any conventional drug, according to a study published in the journal Science on October 22. The implant, developed by a team led by biosystems engineer Martin Fussenegger, pairs a standard glucose sensor with a small electrocatalytic unit that converts excess sugar in the blood into a compound the kidneys can simply flush away.
The device is built from graphite felt studded with gold nanoclusters, themselves decorated with still-smaller platinum particles. When a wearable sensor detects blood glucose running high, it switches on a weak electric current that drives the catalyst to convert glucose into gluconate, a harmless substance excreted in urine. Once glucose levels fall back into a normal range, the system shuts itself off. "The system operates at a very low voltage," Fussenegger said, "and the catalyst only activates when glucose levels are too high," according to coverage of the ETH Zurich findings reported by ScienceDaily.
In mice with type 2 diabetes, the implant ran reliably for six weeks, and the treated animals lost weight over that period, the researchers reported. Because the approach bypasses insulin entirely, the team believes it could eventually offer an alternative for patients whose bodies no longer respond well to the hormone — a hallmark of advanced type 2 diabetes — without the injections, pills or side effects that come with existing drug therapies.
The work is still a long way from clinical use. The device has so far been tested only in mice, not in any human trial, and outside coverage of the study notes it will need to clear the usual regulatory reviews before doctors could prescribe anything like it. Researchers have also flagged open questions about what sustained gluconate production might do to the kidneys and broader metabolism over years of use, rather than the six-week window tested so far.
Wireless, closed-loop implants that sense a problem and respond automatically — without a patient having to inject anything — have become a major goal in diabetes research, following the success of continuous glucose monitors and automated insulin pumps. If the ETH Zurich approach holds up in larger animals and eventually in people, it would represent a genuinely drug-free route to blood sugar control, rather than an incremental improvement on existing insulin delivery.
