Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, have designed an implant that converts excess blood glucose to gluconate using an electrochemical reaction (Science 2026, DOI: 10.1126/science.ady8560). The device could one day help people with diabetes manage their condition with fewer drugs.
“We’re trying to really go after the root cause of the disease, which of course is glucose,” says bioengineer Martin Fussenegger, who led the research. All diabetes treatments are designed to directly or indirectly lower blood glucose levels. So the obvious question for him and his team was how to do that in the most straightforward way possible.
Chemical structures of glucose and gluconate.