For many years noninvasive point-of-care blood glucose determination has been considered the “Holy Grail” of medical diagnostics, never more so than by Grove’s Founders.

Separately, on 2 continents, Grove’s Founders concluded that the problems inherent in near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic approaches to blood glucose determination could be solved with the construction of an “Optical Bridge.” Optical physicist Dr. Hannu Harjunmaa working at the Battelle Institute in Geneva, and Dr. Robert Peura, Founding Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and father of two Type 1 diabetic children, shared their thoughts at a chance meeting in Europe, and Grove was born.

After painstaking proof of principle using incandescent light and complex filtering, Grove’s technology has evolved continuously to today’s prototypes that house 3 laser diodes and one LED, yet are small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. The Optical Bridge remains the seminal invention and stands unique among technological approaches as attested to by Grove’s patent counsel Finnegan Henderson of Cambridge.

Today, Grove’s Founders, development staff and senior management are supported by a world class Scientific Advisory Board consisting of Antoine Kaldany, MD of Harvard University and the Joslin Clinic, Craig Mello, Ph D and Nobel Laureate of the University of Massachusetts, William Tamborlane, MD, the ADA’s Clinician in Diabetes of the Year 2010 from Yale University, and David Harlan, MD, Director of the Diabetes Center of Excellence at the University of Massachusetts and formerly Chief, Diabetes Section, NIH NIDDK.