CBS on the Artificial Pancreas
This morning, there was a short segment on the Early Show that talked about the Artificial Pancreas.The trials sound very interesting and it looks like they've made a lot of progress. It's also good to see the interest in diabetes that has been generated due to the artificial pancreas project.
This is because of the recent NIH, FDA, and JDRF 2-day collaborative workshop on the Artificial Pancreas. The sessions were recorded. You can see the video for day one here, and for day two here.
The agencies and people involved seem to be taking a very pragmatic approach to combining the individual technology pieces to this puzzle. All of the required pieces of hardware already exist, the hard part is getting the software to work so that insulin and blood glucose controls can be automatically controlled. Thankfully those involved seem to be working to get a solution that's usable rather than a 'perfect' device. Hopefully the early prototypes will quickly inform folks about ways in which the overall approach can be improved.
The CBS piece mentions that the artificial pancreas may be available in 5 to 10 years.Because of approval and regulatory issues, I would guess this is closer to 10 years out. I hope it's a lot sooner than that.



