Noninvasive In Vivo Measurement of Blood Hemoglobin Edward R. Wuori, Ph.D., and Mary Gmitter, MinforMed L.L.C. Grant: NIH (NIDDK) Grant- 1R43 DK58467-01A1 Nobody likes to have blood drawn.  Not children.  Not adults.  Not Medical professionals.  They don't like the pain, cost, mess, infection risk, biohazards, or wastes.  Everyone wants faster results. Blood hemoglobin (Hb) is measured using noninvasive blood analysis methodology in vitro without disturbing the subject's skin.  A light is shined onto a body part, through the skin, engaging the blood.  The emerging light's optical absorption spectrum is analyzed for hemoglobin's signature strength.  Low Hb indicates anemia due to chemothereapy, HIV, alcoholism, internal bleeding or other blood loss.  Hb is an important parameter for a large segment of the population.  MinforMed's noninvasive blood Hb analyzer prototype (patent pending) is shown along with comparative results against a laboratory-grade instrument that uses a drop of blood.  An Hb range from 11 g/dL throught 19 g/dL shows excellent correlation within 5% of the least squares line.  Turbidity and other interferences are corrected.  A preliminary product concept is shown.  Three interfaces to the body are planned: a finger clip, an ear clip and a body patch that should permit application to a variety of needs.  We anticipate stand alone operation or with a PDA, PC or phone line up-link.  Future applications include extensions to the four Hb components (oxy-Hb, deoxy-Hb, carboxy-Hb, and met-Hb) and to glycosylated-Hb.  An SBIR grant from NIH (NIDDK) is currently in progress on related work.