UC San Diego develops sweat-powered levodopa patch

Engineers and neuroscientists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a soft, wearable fingertip patch that continuously tracks levodopa levels in Parkinson's disease patients through sweat. The battery-free device uses an enzymatic biofuel cell powered by the chemical reaction between levodopa in sweat and embedded enzymes, generating a voltage that correlates with drug concentration. In clinical tests, the patch matched the accuracy of standard laboratory blood tests and revealed that Parkinson's patients clear levodopa faster than healthy individuals. The technology, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, could enable at-home dose adjustments and future closed-loop drug delivery systems. The research was led by Tamoghna Saha in the lab of Joseph Wang (chemist), in collaboration with Irene Litvan's lab, and was supported by the United States — National Institutes of Health.