Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a wireless smart capsule packed with sensors and other tiny electronics to monitor the workings of your gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This new tool could help us get a better sense of our gut health, with the convenience and ease of a pill you can swallow.
PillTrek, as this capsule is called, measures just 7mm in diameter and 25mm in length (0.275 x 0.98 in). Yet, it’s capable of detecting electrolytes, metabolites, hormones like serotonin and dopamine, glucose, pH, ionic strength, and temperature, thanks to inexpensive, low-power components. These biomarkers can help identify and monitor conditions like metabolic syndrome (which increases your risk of heart disease and diabetes) and inflammation.
That could negate the need for costly and invasive methods of GI tract investigation – like endoscopy and computerized tomography (CT) – that can only be used in hospitals. Those methods also can’t provide findings in real-time.
Image courtesy of the researchers
This miniature electrochemical workstation was born from recent developments in sensor materials and techniques for measuring biomarkers. Professor Wei Gao noted that PillTrek was designed “to be a very versatile platform,” in the sense that a variety of sensors can be swapped into it depending on what you want to monitor in a patient’s gut.
Image courtesy of the researchers
To test its capabilities, the team used PillTrek to successfully measure pH, temperature, and glucose and serotonin levels in rabbits. It’s designed for prolonged wireless operation in the GI tract, which means it can stay in the body and continually relay measurements in real-time.
“Ingestible capsules have significant potential in diagnosis, monitoring, and management of chronic conditions, but previous devices were very limited in terms of their sensing capabilities, lifetime, and size,” noted Azita Emami, a co-author on the paper detailing PillTrek that appeared in Nature Electronics last month. “This work is an important translational step toward devices that can provide meaningful medical information for patients and physicians.”
Interestingly, two years ago, Caltech had developed a system to track wireless ingestible devices in 3D as they traveled through the gut.
Image courtesy of the researchers
The team hopes to advance PillTrek’s design further by making it even smaller, and lowering its power consumption. That could enable it to work for longer inside the body before you need a new one.
