Bionic pancreas frees people from shackles of diabetes

Ed Damiano's son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2000. He was 11 months old. Damiano, a biomedical engineer, decided to create a device that would help his child and millions of others better manage their disease.

He set a goal of having it ready by the time his son went to college. Results from the latest clinical trials of his smartphone-linked artificial pancreas suggest he might just make that deadline.

Type 1 diabetes occurs when beta islet cells in the pancreas die off. These cells sense levels of blood sugar, aka glucose, in the blood and secrete the necessary amount of insulin to keep those levels normal. Insulin also enables glucose to enter our body's cells, where it is used as a source of energy. This means an imbalance in blood sugar not only starves blood vessels and organs of energy but also keeps the blood saturated with glucose, which can cause tissue damage and sometimes lead to coma or even death.

The disease usually occurs early in life and can be managed through careful monitoring of blood insulin levels, controlling what food is eaten and when, modifying physical activity, and the use of pumps or injections to deliver insulin and the glucose-raising hormone glucagon to keep blood sugar levels within a normal range.

But controlling the disease is all-consuming, lurking in the back of every waking decision. Damiano, who works at the University of Boston, says a bionic pancreas his team has developed with colleagues at the Massachusetts General Hospital offers hope of a normal life to people with type 1 diabetes.