Google is developing a bracelet for the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases
"Smart" bracelet will detect cancer
Yunna Kotsar, Dmitry Bevza, <url>Google is developing a "smart" bracelet that will help in detecting cancer and heart attacks.
If the project, which is still only in the early stages of development, still succeeds, it will revolutionize medicine, experts say.
Google is working on a bracelet that will be able to perform non-invasive blood tests. It is expected that with the help of the gadget it will be possible to diagnose cancer and prevent heart attacks, as well as other diseases at a much earlier date than is possible now.
The device is still at an early stage of development, and it is unknown when Google's product will be able to be widely used in medicine.
The device will be able to determine the composition of human blood using "smart" nanoparticles that will enter the patient's blood when he swallows a special tablet. The data from them will be read by a sensor placed on the wrist. Thus, it will be possible to detect the smallest changes in the biochemistry of the human body.
Nanoparticles, in particular, will be able to detect fragments of cancer DNA or determine that fatty plaques are ready to break away from the walls of blood vessels.
"You can collect all these nanoparticles in one place (because they are magnetic) in the superficial vessels of the wrist and then find out what indicators they recorded," explains Dr. Andrew Conrad, head of the Google diagnostic project.
It will be possible to determine what the nanoparticles have learned by their movement, using special software: the nanoparticles attached to the cancer cell will not move like the rest.
Paul Workman, CEO of the London Institute of Cancer Research, considers Google's development extremely relevant. "This is more necessary than ever. If we can diagnose cancer or other diseases earlier, we will be able to influence them earlier," he said in an interview with the BBC (Google is developing cancer and heart attack detector – VM).
It is impossible to say how realistic Google's idea is, because the concept has yet to be put into practice, Workman notes.
However, such a diagnosis can become a reason for excessive anxiety of patients and force them to start treatment that they do not need. Therefore, according to Workman, specialists will need a very thorough analysis before such monitoring of the state of the body can become widely used.
Early diagnosis of diseases is one of the most important tasks of modern medicine. Many types of cancer, such as pancreatic cancer, are detected already in the late stages, when they are incurable. Google's development is expected to constantly monitor the appearance of traces of cancer in the blood, allowing the disease to be diagnosed even before any physical symptoms appear.
The project is being handled by Google's secret research unit, Google X, the creator of such sensational developments as Google Glass and an unmanned vehicle.
The idea of a "smart" bracelet confirms that in the future Google will increasingly turn to the development of gadgets for health monitoring. Previously, the company had already worked on "smart" contact lenses for diabetics, and also acquired a startup Lift Labs – developers of a spoon capable of neutralizing tremors of Parkinson's disease sufferers. Google also owns stakes in Calico, an aging research company, and 23andMe, which offers personal genetic testing kits.
Of course, Google is not the only company working on creating gadgets of this kind. Smart devices (primarily bracelets) for health monitoring are a large-scale trend.
The first "smart" bracelets were, in fact, ordinary pedometers capable of transmitting information about the distance traveled to the application, which, in turn, counted the number of calories burned. Then fitness bracelets received more advanced accelerometers capable of determining not only the form of physical activity (walking, running, cycling, skiing), but also the time and quality of sleep. For even greater accuracy of measuring the distance traveled, a GPS sensor is added to some devices.
The next step in the evolution of wearable devices was an attempt to equip "smart" bracelets with an increasing number of sensors and sensors: pulse, pressure, temperature measurements. In serial fitness bracelets, only the pulse sensor has taken root so far, but its accuracy leaves much to be desired.
The development of the Russian company HealBe, the GoBe fitness bracelet, which is based on the method of non-invasive measurement of blood sugar levels, looked quite interesting. However, the technology used in GoBe itself caused a lot of controversy and doubts about its operability, and the delivery of the first production samples was once again postponed, now to December 2014.
To date, several large companies besides Google are trying to equip wearable devices with a variety of sensors that will constantly monitor human health and transmit data to special applications on a smartphone or even directly to a medical institution.
Samsung (Simband smart bracelet) has similar programs, as well as the main competitor of the Koreans – Apple. At a recent Q&A session, Tim Cook stated that the company is interested in creating smart devices for fitness and health monitoring, emphasizing that gadgets for health protection are a vivid example of such devices.
Another IT giant - Intel – together with the foundation of the famous actor Michael Fox (Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, MJFF) is engaged in research on Parkinson's disease, a dangerous brain disease that is in second place (in prevalence) after Alzheimer's disease. The collection and analysis of signs of Parkinson's disease in thousands of patients, including rigidity, tremor, changes in sleep quality, allow us to get a clear idea of the clinical course of the disease and identify the connection with molecular changes in the human body. Wearable devices designed for this purpose collect and transmit data around the clock in real time.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru30.10.2014