Economical, No-Maintenance, Wearable Alcohol Sensor for Treatment, Research and Consumer Users

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant 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 deaths annually and worldwide up to million deaths annually with economic costs exceeding $ 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 andquot no maintenanceandquot 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 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 $ 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 PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE 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