Google X Staffers Meet With FDA

Google operates a secret facility about half a mile away from its “Googleplex” headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Google X, as it is known, is run by one of Google’s co-founders Sergey Brin, and no one except those who work inside the facility know what kind of operations are underway there. Most logically assume that new and future Google technologies (such as Google Glass or Google’s self-driving car) are conceived at Google X—but no one really knows.

Bloomberg has reported that Google X staff recently met with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), setting the medical technology industry abuzz with rumors that the internet search engine behemoth might actually be working on a medical device. It could be, Bloomberg reports, that the technology that went into developing Google Glass—“smart” glasses that enable users to check email, watch TV and stay plugged in just by wearing this set of spectacles—could have medical applications: namely, biosensors.

“Our main job is to figure out how to obviously invest more to achieve greater outcomes for the world, for the company,” Google’s CEO Larry Page said during a call with analysts last July. “And I think those opportunities are clearly there.”

FDA’s public calendar also shows the Google representatives met with the head of the agency’s office that reviews device applications for marketing approval and the FDA adviser responsible for the agency’s guidelines for mobile medical apps. The FDA classified Google’s visit to Silver Spring, Maryland, where the agency is based, as a “meet and greet.”

One of the Google participants was Andrew Conrad, who joined X last year. Conrad is a former chief scientist at Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings and co-founder of its National Genetics Institute. Other attendees included Brian Otis and Zenghe “Zach” Liu.

Otis is an electrical engineering professor currently on leave from the University of Washington in Seattle. His area of professional interest is in wireless biosensors. Otis’ colleague Babak Parviz was involved in the Google Glass project  and has, in the past, talked about the potential for using that technology to place displays in contact lenses, including displays that monitor a user’s health. “Noninvasive monitoring of the wearer’s biomarkers and health indicators could be a huge future market,” Parviz wrote in a 2009 paper titled “Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens.” Together, Parviz and Otis co-authored a paper titled “Glucose Sensor for Wireless Contact-Lens Tear Glucose Monitoring” for the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

Liu’s past experience includes time with Abbott Laboratories, pharmaceutical and medical device company where he served as a researcher, and TheraSense, where he was a senior scientist. His area of expertise is electrochemistry.