ACE Research Center testing Artificial Pancreas

Armour College of Engineering is home to many renowned research centers and the Engineering Center for Diabetes Research and Education is no exception. Currently, an artificial pancreas (AP) is being tested at the center that monitors a person’s physiological variables in order to infuse insulin automatically. An article in the Spring 2014 issue of IIT Magazine sheds some light on this life changing device.

Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), in collaboration with the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and York University (Toronto), is testing the system in a five-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The team is building upon the results of its NIH-funded earlier AP study started in 2009 that showed promising results in a small group of type 1 diabetes subjects.

ChBE Professor Ali Cinar, Director, Engineering Center for Diabetes Research and Education states what sets their device apart from others, “We were the first group that supplemented glucose measurement information with a sports armband (BodyMedia Sensewear) that reports a person’s physiological variables, such as energy expenditure through exercise or sweating to build a multivariable AP control system.”

The team hopes to be able to incorporate the technology into a device the size of a cell phone that could be worn like a pager. This device has the potential to revolutionize the way people with diabetes live their lives. A person living with diabetes could put on this device and their blood sugars would automatically managed without them having to worry about a thing.

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