Economical, No aintenance, Wearable Alcohol Sensor for Treatment, Research and Consumer Users Alcohol use remains the third leading cause of death both in the US (85,000 deaths annually) and worldwide (up to 2.5 million deaths annually) with economic costs exceeding $223 billion annually in the US alone. While on-going clinical studies continue to advance the understanding of the behavioral and physiological effects of alcohol use, many of these studies suffer from the lack of a continuous, quantitative, and real-time measurement of alcohol blood levels. Many clinical studies primarily rely on subject self-report of alcohol use, which is severely limited by the inability to accurately quantitate blood alcohol levels, intentional or unintentional misrepresentation, reporting biases, and memory artifacts. Other methods that provide an objective measurement of alcohol, such as biological assays and breathalyzers, also suffer from significant limitations, including invasiveness, constant user interaction, and/or the inability to provide real-time quantitative measurements of alcohol. By contrast, the Giner transdermal alcohol sensor (i.e., WrisTAS(tm) device) provides a noninvasive, continuous, and user-friendly device for measuring alcohol that diffuses through the skin, which is then correlated to blood alcohol levels. The Giner technology is in commercial use for the criminal justice/law enforcement market as an ankle bracelet. However, the major obstacles to a more economical and consumer-friendly device are the substantial labor required to manufacture the alcohol sensing element and the maintenance requirement to refill the water reservoir. Therefore, Giner has proposed innovative solutions to both these obstacles through the development of a new no maintenance (i.e., no water refill) device, as well as alternative manufacturing techniques that will enable high-output, roll-to-roll manufacturing designed to reduce assembly time and labor by 80%. With the proposed innovations for the alcohol sensing element used in the WrisTAS(tm) Device, Giner will enable a new version of the transdermal alcohol sensor costing ~$99, thus expanding the use further in clinical research, as well as currently untapped markets, such as the alcohol treatment/rehabilitation, professional monitoring (e.g. pilots, truck drivers, doctors, etc.), and he consumer markets.
The Giner transdermal alcohol sensor provides the unique capacity to noninvasively, continuously, and passively monitor alcohol levels not currently available with competing alcohol monitoring techniques (e.g. self-report, breathalyzers, biological assays), thus enabling more comprehensive, quantitative, and objective studies of the physiological and behavioral effects of alcohol use. In the proposed project, two areas of innovation are proposed to improve convenience and to reduce manufacturing costs. The project will produce a new wearable sensor at a price point that will enable its extensive use in research studies, alcohol treatment programs, monitoring of professionals, and consumer health monitoring.
