Wearable skin patch that tracks uric acid and metabolites for people with gout
Official title: Cutaneous uric acid and metabolite monitoring to improve individual response to pharmaceutical and dietary treatment in patients with gout
Funded at California Institute of Technology · NIH-11383658 · Data updated 2026-11-12
A wearable skin patch will measure uric acid and other metabolites around meals to help people with gout make better diet and medication choices.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | California Institute of Technology NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Pasadena, United States) |
| Project start | June 13, 2022 |
| Project end | August 31, 2028 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $809,473 |
| NIH project number | 4R33DK132666-03 |
| Project ID | NIH-11383658 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are adults with gout, age 21 or older, whether they are currently taking urate-lowering therapy or not.
✕Less likely to help
People without gout or those unwilling or unable to wear a skin patch regularly are unlikely to benefit from this project.
What this research studies
You would wear a small skin patch that reads uric acid and other metabolites in your sweat before and after meals. The patch sends results to an easy-to-use app so you can see how food and medicines affect your uric acid over time. Researchers will test these enhancements in a randomized 10-week trial including people with gout who are taking or not taking urate-lowering medicines. The team will expand which metabolites are tracked and make the patch work for morning and evening meals to see if real-time feedback improves diet, medication choices, and metabolic outcomes.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could help people with gout make better diet and medication choices and lower their uric acid without repeated blood draws.
How similar studies have gone: Similar wearable uric acid sensors have shown strong correlation with blood urate, but using them to guide diet and medication over weeks is a newer approach.
Where this research is happening
-
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Gao, Wei — California Institute of Technology
- Study coordinator: Gao, Wei
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
-
Treat-to-Target Urate in Gout: A New Approach for Better Pain and Health
A large clinical trial tests whether aiming for a specific uric acid level in gout patients improves symptoms and health outcomes compared with avoiding symptoms.
-
Translational Genomics in Gout: Linking GWAS Signals to Mechanisms
Aims to understand why some people with high uric acid develop gout by connecting genetic clues to the biology of joint inflammation.
-
Genetic clues to gout flares through cell gene activity in blood and joint fluid
Researchers will study how genes turn on or off in immune cells from blood and joint fluid during gout flares to understand why flares happen.
-
Uric acid skin sensor to guide gout treatment and diet
A skin patch that measures uric acid in sweat is being tested to help people with gout manage their diet and medications better.
-
Gout and Kidney Disease: How gout changes as kidney disease gets worse and after kidney transplant
This project follows people with gout as their kidney disease progresses toward dialysis or transplant, using national kidney data to understand how often gout flares happen and how care needs change.
-
SGLT2 inhibitors for gout care in adults with diabetes
A randomized trial is testing whether an SGLT2 inhibitor can help reduce gout flares and improve heart and kidney health in adults with type 2 diabetes.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.