Patient invents portable sensor to detect gluten in food

Shireen came up with the idea for this device at a wedding in 2012, when she realized she had forgotton her gluten-free snacks at home and the caterers for the event couldn’t tell her whether or not her meal contained gluten.

The Nima, a pocket-size device, works like this: You put a tiny amount of food or liquid (one-eighth of a teaspoon) into a one-time-use capsule, then screw on the cap to grind it up. The capsule contains a fluid that extracts protein from the sample so it can interact with a test strip which is coated with antibodies and changes color in the presence of gluten. The palm-sized Nima, which the capsule is then placed into, translates the reading into a happy face (no gluten) or sad face (gluten). 6SensorLabs says that within two minutes, the device can detect gluten levels to 20 parts per million, the standard for “gluten-free” labels set by the FDA.

At the time, Yates was earning her MBA at MIT. She teamed up with gluten-free schoolmate Scott Sundvor, then an undergraduate in mechanical engineering; together they founded 6SensorLabs and relocated to San Francisco in 2013.

6SensorLabs has priced the device between $179 and $199 until the pre sale ends. After that, it will cost $249 with a monthly subscription for a dozen capsules running $47.95.

More info: https://nimasensor.com

Adapted from: http://bzfd.it/2coZL1j

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