The artificial pancreas
You may have already heard about the JDRF artificial pancreas project.
They're working on developing a closed loop system where readings from a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) are used to directly control an insulin pump. Currently those of us with CGMs and insulin pumps have got an open loop system, we need to take the readings from the CGM and decide whether we need insulin or food.Clearly this is a difficult problem to solve. How would such a system know if you were sick? What would it do when you're about to exercise? How would it handle changing insulin needs for children who are growing?
Now you have a chance to learn more about this project. On July 21st and 22nd the FDA, NIH and JDRF are holding a public workshop 'focused upon the state of the art in the research and development of an artificial pancreas'.
The meeting will be in Bethesda Maryland at the NIH campus. Building 38A on this map. Space is limited so you do need to register.
I would love to go to this workshop, but I'll be out of the country.
Can I ask you a favor? If you go the workshop can you write up a summary of what's discussed and post it to the blogosphere?
Attribution: The illustration above is from the JDRF site.



