{"id":8402,"date":"2019-09-23T20:03:21","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T00:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2019\/12\/16\/baker-ouzts-eye-diabetes-breakthrough-optical-glucometer\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T18:32:48","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T23:32:48","slug":"baker-ouzts-eye-diabetes-breakthrough-optical-glucometer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/baker-ouzts-eye-diabetes-breakthrough-optical-glucometer\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Baker, Paige Ouzts ’93 invention could revolutionize diabetes management"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Furman Professor of Physics Bill Baker was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2003, it served as an initiation into a painful club.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing you have to deal with is, \u2018what is my blood glucose reading?\u2019 You learn to love to stick your fingers,\u201d Baker said with dry sarcasm, because of course he never actually learned to love jabbing a sharp piece of metal into his body. But withdrawing blood to measure and monitor sugar levels is what diabetics<\/a> must do, over and over and over again, and Baker was no exception. Or was he?<\/p>\n

Being a theoretical physicist makes Baker less inclined to accept reality than most people, and if this particular reality exists only because somebody hadn\u2019t come up with a better idea yet, the plan was simple: Become that somebody. Zoom ahead to 2019, and it looks like he has \u2014 with a huge assist from Lander University Professor of Physics and longtime collaborator Paige Ouzts \u201993<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Baker and Ouzts stand on the verge of being granted what would be the first patent owned by Furman in the university\u2019s nearly 200-year history for an invention that has the potential to revolutionize how diabetics manage the disease. Called an \u201coptical glucometer,\u201d it is able to measure glucose levels by taking a specialized photo of the eye with sophisticated infrared sensors, eliminating the need for needles, blood or physical contact of any kind.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou make an image of the eye in the appropriate wavelengths, and that can be used to determine actual glucose concentration in the fluid in your eye,\u201d Baker said. \u201cIt\u2019s as good as a glucometer<\/a>. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s all I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n

The optical glucometer, which is the culmination of nearly a decade of work, owes its creation to an observation that led to a question.<\/p>\n

\"Eyeball

A close-up picture of Furman Professor of Physics Bill Baker’s eye on the head support used for the optical glucometer.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI noticed that after I had a meal my vision blurred. I thought, \u2018what is the origin of this?\u2019\u201d Baker said, and a friend who was an ophthalmologist told him the lens of the eye changes with fluctuations in blood sugar. \u201cSo I thought maybe this was an (opening) to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question then became, could this glucose change be measured? If anyone could help him figure out how it would be Ouzts, who began her collaboration with Baker on a number of research projects in 2006.<\/p>\n

An infrared laser physicist who had experience working with biological systems, few people in the world are better at manipulating electromagnetic radiation than she is. That specialized skillset was invaluable to the optical glucometer project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first started, we wanted to know if there was another way to detect blood glucose. It morphed over time into this,\u201d she said. \u201cWe thought, since your body is an infrared emitter, why can\u2019t we use infrared technology, infrared sensors? \u2026 (But) I don\u2019t think either one of us thought it would ultimately be a device.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s partially because when they began, the technology didn\u2019t exist to allow them to get the readings they needed. But as that changed, so did their prospects.<\/p>\n

\u201cDevices are just now sensitive enough to make the differential readings that we have to have. Once technology and detector systems caught up to what we needed in terms of sensitivity, then it became possible to set up our experimental process,” Baker said. \u201cThere is the science, and the science is on a strong foundation, but it\u2019s amazing it was as predictable as it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ability to experiment on yourself was a huge help, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Paige) is a real stickler for data acquisition, and that\u2019s good. So we tested and tested and tested,\u201d Baker said. \u201cI\u2019m highly motivated to do this work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker and Ouzts filed a provisional patent application once they were confident in the reliability of the optical glucometer, and for the past year they\u2019ve been waiting for their full patent to be granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Service. The university, Baker and Ouzts have agreed to split any potential profits equally.<\/p>\n

Furman provided considerable assistance with the arduous and expensive filing process and is using this opportunity to create an infrastructure to better support potential campus inventors and entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurman is handling the legal expense and time and effort to file the patent, which means Furman will own the patent, assuming it is approved,\u201d said John Wheeler, associate provost for integrative science and professor of chemistry. \u201cI think certainly the more research that is going on at Furman with students of a high caliber, the more likely we are to see this type of opportunity in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker<\/a> arrived at Furman from Michelin, where he was chief of service for the advanced engineering division of research and development, the year after Ouzts graduated as Furman\u2019s only female physics major.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sort of joke he\u2019s the brains and I\u2019m the brawn behind the operation, because he\u2019s the theorist and I\u2019m the experimentalist. I bring the technique into the experiment,\u201d said Ouzts, who earned her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Alabama. \u201cWorking with Bill is great because he\u2019s always light-hearted and he makes it entertaining and he\u2019s got such a knowledge \u2026 He would talk about his theory work with quantum relativity, which is one of those things that\u2019s mind-blowing for everybody, I don\u2019t care if you have a Ph.D. in physics or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of that scientific intellectual horsepower didn\u2019t help very much with filing a patent, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to deal with the science of it, the experiment and the research \u2026 but to have to deal with attorneys and administration \u2014 that\u2019s a whole different ballgame,\u201d Ouzts said. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely been a learning curve and interesting to go through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being granted a patent would only be the first step of an even longer journey to a marketable product. Multiple regulatory hurdles stand in the way, but if they\u2019re cleared the optical glucometer could improve the lives of countless people with diabetes.<\/p>\n

Baker and Ouzts envision an end to testing strips that cost about a dollar apiece and children crying from the pain of needles, replaced by a future where a portable non-invasive device can store and share blood sugar information digitally.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realized this is doable, it\u2019s reasonable and it\u2019s an advantage to us and Furman to try and do something with it,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: Baker and Ouzts were granted a patent for the optical glucometer in October.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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