The Artificial Pancreas is in the News, I think mostly because it has become a high profile cause of the JDRF. The idea is not new. I remember when writing “Prospects in Diabetes Therapy” in 1980 I interviewed Dr. Robert Fischell at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. He was working on an artificial pancreas (then called the ‘closed loop pump’) and predicted it would be ready in five years. Dr. Fischell is credited with inventing the implantable insulin pump, but he could never get the artificial pancreas to work.
Author Archive
A Hint of a Breakthrough
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Was that a breakthrough? How do we know for sure?
“Medical Breakthrough” gets 1.9 million Google hits. We crave breakthroughs; they are the food of press coverage. The urge to call every step in the right direction a breakthrough is strong, if only because it increases excitement – and the prospect of raising badly needed funds.
Years of Progress; Decades of Gratitude
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
The end of a year and the marker of a decade are a time to reflect. None of the insulin’s I inject was on the market ten years ago. I combine Lantus in the morning and Levemir at night to get basal insulin pretty close to what my islets would have given me. I can inject Novolog when I eat (rather than earlier when my meal insulin was Regular), lowering social anxiety (“Excuse me, can you tell me when exactly we will eat? I have a metabolic disease.”) Best of all I can measure my blood sugar as often as I want, and quickly adjust insulin as needed. In short, I have the tools I need to manage my diabetes and lead a pretty healthy life.
DCCT Study
Monday, December 7th, 2009
“As you know I think tight control is a good idea. The clinical study that is going to prove that tight control prevents vascular disease is about halfway done and is looking promising. So let’s stick with your tight control. I don’t want your kidneys to fail.” This was the first I heard of the DCCT study, from Dr. Andrew Drexler, when I lived in New York City and was his patient.
Microcapsules versus Macrocapsules
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
Experts agree that islet encapsulation is a promising concept for making the benefits of islet transplantation available to people suffering from diabetes without the use of immunosuppressant drugs. The capsules come in two types. A capsule containing a single islet is called a microcapsule; one that contains many islets is a macrocapsule. The macrocapsule is safer,
An Example of Academic Research Presented as A Path to the Cure
Monday, November 9th, 2009
I have chosen to comment on this paper because it has good science and has attracted notice. Unfortunately, however, it is difficult to see how this work could possibly be construed to bring us any nearer at all to a cure.
“This study was designed to test the hypothesis that macroencapsulated human β-cell precursors transplanted into severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice can survive and mature into functional β-cells in vivo.” Here is what these researchers at Burnham Institute in San Diego did.
Report from IPITA/IXA 2009 Joint Meeting
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
The joint meeting of the International Pancreas and Islet Transplantation Association (IPITA) and the International Xenotransplantation Association (IXA) has ended in Venice, Italy. This is the first overseas meeting the Cerco Medical team has attended in a long time. We renewed acquaintances with friends and colleagues in the field and learned the latest results.
The Sanford Project
Saturday, September 12th, 2009
The biggest little-known effort to cure type 1 diabetes is called The Sanford Project. The project is a result of T. Denny Sanford’s extraordinary 2007 gift of $400 million to the University of South Dakota and the nonprofit Sioux Valley Medical System (renamed the Sanford Health System). Mr. Sanford made his money in the credit card business and is using his fortune to improve his native Sioux Falls with high quality health care and leading health care research.
Brown Fat
Monday, August 31st, 2009
We are told that if you are overweight it is your own fault for eating too much! The logic is like a tub of water where the water stands for food energy. To live and move a certain amount of water drains out of the tub, so you eat to fill the tub again. The energy level drops an inch, so we eat, it goes up an inch, and our weight remains the same. Very simple, but only partly true.
Prospects in Diabetes Therapy (circa 1980)
Monday, July 27th, 2009
To misquote Dave Eggars, “Prospects in Diabetes Therapy” is a heartwarming work of staggering genius. I was young, living in New York, working at a smart investment banking firm called F. Eberstadt & Co. (which, weirdly, had taken my father’s company public during the depression), and living in the delightful wide-open space of having become the first investment analyst of a new and hot industry, biotechnology. I remember my boss, Dick Emmitt, told me the company liked my initial work, and now I could pick my own topic for a report. I had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes less then two years previous. I told him I wanted to find out the future of diabetes therapy. He liked it – no one had investigated investment opportunities in the diabetes industry – and I was given a few months to do the research.