Implantable pancreas

An artificial pancreas has been created for diabetics

Georgy Golovanov, Hi-tech+

People living with type I diabetes need to constantly check their blood sugar levels and inject insulin. An Israeli biomedical company claims that soon – thanks to their implant – this will not be necessary.

Beta-O2 Technologies has developed a prototype of an implantable device made of titanium, which it called a "Bio-artificial pancreas", or aAir for short. Inside the device, measuring only 64 mm, there is a microcapsule with live pancreatic cells. They can be obtained from human donors, pigs, or grown from the patient's own stem cells. The external port on the oxygen tank needs to be replenished with oxygen once a week, reports New Atlas.

After implantation under the skin, Beta-Air begins to constantly monitor glucose levels. If necessary, pancreatic cells produce and deliver insulin. But the main feature of the device is the oxygen supply. Previous experiments with an artificial pancreas have shown that in the case of a limited supply of oxygen in the patient's blood, the cells lose their viability.

In addition, no immunosuppressive therapy is required so that the patient's body does not reject the implant. If necessary, it can be easily removed.

Air has already been tested on four patients from Sweden. After ten months of wearing, they did not experience any side effects – the cells remained alive and active. Now the company is conducting tests on rats of the second generation of the device, which also demonstrates good results. Larger human clinical trials are scheduled for this year.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru