It doesn’t take much of a leap of faith to imagine a handheld glucose meter-like device used to sense all sorts of substances in a drop of blood-from cocaine and prescribed medicines to infection-related interferon and cellular “housekeeping” enzymes like adenosine deaminase.  This vision is now closer to reality with research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where investigators mixed micoscopic magenetic beads with DNA tags and an enzyme that breaks down sucrose to glucose into a blood droplet.  When the DNA tag bound to the target molecule, the beads release the sugar enzyme allowing the glucose level to indicate the biomarker concentration with a drugstore-variety glucose meter.   MORE