For many Type 1 diabetic patients, waking up in the morning and not having to go through the motions of constantly checking their blood sugar levels throughout the day would be tantamount to not having the disease at all.
This is the goal of the minds behind the Artificial Pancreas Project - launched by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Project - who are in the process of creating a first-generation system that would try to keep blood sugar within a set range.
"The holy grail would be for a complete, independent system ... that replaces all the hormones made in the pancreas and the patient either wore it or it was implanted and that was it," said Dr. Henry Anhalt, chief medical officer for Animas Corporation. Animas is a Johnson and Johnson company that manufactures insulin delivery and glucose management systems that teamed up the JDRF to produce this ultimate system.
For patients with Type 1 diabetes, their pancreases do not have the ability to produce insulin, which regulates their blood sugar.
For children (and adults) who are diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, "it's a whole new world, it's a whole new language, it's a whole new set of responsibilities," Anhalt said, for those going from dealing with the regular pressures of homework and chores to being told they have an irreversible disease. "You go to bed with it, you wake up with it. Every time you eat, exercise, have stress, or travel you must plan and think."
"Having a device that would give the appropriate amount of insulin to minimize low blood sugar reactions, which are life-threatening, and minimize high blood sugar reactions, which cause long-term complications, would really be the goal of our product," Anhalt said.
On Sunday afternoon, Prince George residents are invited to learn more about the progress of the Artificial Pancreas Project and engage in a discussion with a couple of the professionals behind it. Dr. Ramakrishna Venugopalan, director of the Artificial Pancreas program, and Dr. Brian L. Levy, medical director for Animas Corporation, are part of the international speaking tour - taking place at the University of Northern B.C. at 2:30 p.m. - that will touch on the evolution of diabetes management technology and what's coming next.
This first-generation system will use a continuous-glucose monitoring device and an insulin pump. The wearer will still need to manually instruct the pump to deliver insulin at times and adjust insulin delivery rates based on activity, illness and other variables. But it would increase insulin delivery or turn it off when those blood sugar levels drop out of a preferred range.
Anhalt said it is still four to six years away from becoming a tangible product. "We have the mathematical formulas, the algorithms. The question is, can we put it into the package it needs to be in? The answer is, pretty much yes, but there are some unknowns." These unknowns are everything from how hot the internal pieces are going to get, to delays and hurdles set out by regulatory agencies.
Dr. Anhalt will join the tour at a later date and said he enjoys speaking to patients, their families, caregivers and health-care professionals about the technology and any advancements.
"As a pediatric endocrinologist myself, who's treated patients for 20 years, the angst and the anguish that people feel on a day-to-day basis managing their diabetes and the inability to make it go away ... is something that, if I can make an impact on and I can share this message with patients that we're moving in that direction, that brings me a tremendous amount of satisfaction," Anhalt said. "I feel I have the opportunity to provide relief, at least partial relief, to their struggles right now."
The update on the Artificial Pancreas Project takes place Sunday, Nov. 6 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at UNBC, room 7-238 in the Weldwood Theatre. Attendees are asked to RSVP by Nov. 4 by calling 1-877-464-0074 or sending an e-mail to [email protected].
