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Artificial pancreas gets royal seal of approval

DCUK NewsBot

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The pioneering artificial pancreas developed for people with type 1 diabetes has been hailed as "brilliant" by Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. The innovative technology was the focal point of her royal visit to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, where the device has been trialled. The artificial pancreas works by copying how the body works and automatically releases the right amount of insulin when needed, eliminating the need to constantly monitor blood sugar levels and inject. Researchers have spent years working on the technology, which they hope will eventually become commercially available for people with type 1 diabetes. Speaking at the end of her visit the duchess said: "Having seen this artificial pancreas - and being a technophobe I shouldn’t really have understood what it does - it looked quite simple and completely brilliant." The Duchess has been President of JDRF - which also funded much of the work on the artificial pancreas - for more than five years. During this she has met many individuals and families who have been affected by type 1 diabetes. At the hospital she spoke with a group of young people and their families about their experiences of living with type 1 diabetes. She also met some members of the research team from the Cambridge Clinical Research Centre. The Duchess added: "I'm sure it’s going to change the lives of a lot of you and a lot of your children in the very near future. "They just have to get it through the right channels, find the money and make everyone believe in it because I feel sure this is going to save so many lives and make so many lives easier to deal with." Dr Roman Hovorka, who has been developing the technology since 2006 and is professor of diabetes technology, told the Duchess: "This is what our clever body does all the time without us knowing it." Picture: Mike Thornton, StillVision photography.

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I just hope they can get through trials and testing quicker. This would change the lives of so many diabetics. I live in hope, not for a cure but for a less hands on role required for diabetics. My only issue with these is that they will be very expensive and funding will likely not be available. So I can't see this for another 10 years tbh.
 

Its available to create at home now, about 1000 people worldwide use them (including me)
 
Engineer88 said:
Its available to create at home now, about 1000 people worldwide use them (including me)
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Interesting, I've seen it before the diy kits. But that's assumes you already have a pump and CGM. Do you self-fund these?
 
Muneeb said:
Interesting, I've seen it before the diy kits. But that's assumes you already have a pump and CGM. Do you self-fund these?
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The pump no, the CGM sometimes when I'm not on clinical trials
 
The Addenbrooke's system is giving much better results then letting a normal hospital nurse control how much inslin a pt gets, And this is with normal hospital food and the system not being told what someone is eating. The system is also only being used for a few days by each pt, so has little data to learn from.

In hospitals they are not willing to assume a person will eat a meal, hence will often not let a pt take inslin before a meal.

The "DIY looping" system are likely to be much better for "free living" people who are wiling and able to take some responsibility for themselves. (I think the Addenbrooke's system still runs the software on a laptop with cables connected to the pt.)
 

My understanding is its a pump and CGM plus a phone app. Will enquire when I go next
 
It may have changed since the paper they published on the trail. Having the software running on a laptop would have made debugging a lot easier.
 
I've seen the latest round of Roman Hovorka's work - it looks pretty good. Obviously it's not quite as flexible as the DIY stuff, but then, that requires you to be a little more engaged than the systems they are trialling.
 

In another 10 years I will be 70 and will be 39 years with type 1, so I won't hold my breath
 
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