14 DAY TRIAL // The fight against juvenile diabetes will only get worse before it starts producing results, investigators say, and this is why engineers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) are working on creating an artificial pancreas.
According to the researchers the closed-loop, synthetic organ will contribute to monitoring the level of sugar in the blood of Type I diabetes patients. When these levels drop below normal, insulin will be automatically delivered into the body.
The organ will aid those living with the chronic disease every day of their lives. The RPI team believes that the innovation will help improve their quality of life, allowing them to enjoy things that are now prohibited by the nature of the illness.
Annually, 30,000 people (half adults, half children) in the United States are diagnosed with Type I, or juvenile, diabetes. This means that they will require insulin for the rest of their lives in order to survive.
RPI Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering professor B. Wayne Bequette has been working on creating the closed-loop, artificial pancreas for more than 6 years. If successful, his work could literally improve the lives of tens of thousands in the US, and millions abroad.
“Every single person with Type 1 diabetes has a different response to insulin and a different response to meals. These responses also vary with the time of day, type of meal, stress level, and exercise,” he says.
“A successful automated system must be safe and reliable in spite of these widely varying responses,” Bequette says of the huge challenges he and his team faced along the year-long research project.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) are providing the funds the expert needs to conduct his research. Most of his work has been published in the journals Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics and Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology.
According to the expert, the synthetic pancreas is currently being investigated in clinical trials by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which must approve it if general use is to be considered.
Researchers from the Stanford University, the University of Colorado in Denver, the Jaeb Center for Health Research, the Universidad de Los Andes (Venezuela), and the University of California in Santa Barbara, are also a part of the research.
“A diabetic would wear this device at all times, with a needle inserted just under the skin, in order to regulate his or her glucose levels. When the device senses the blood sugar getting high, it automatically administers insulin. Inversely, the device cuts off the insulin pump to avoid hypoglycemia,” Bequette concludes.