- My son was diagnosed with diabetes and that was scary.
I remember thinking to myself that the only
difference between nightmare and reality
is that reality lasts longer.
Type I Diabetes is an autoimmune disorder,
in which your own immune system attacks the cells
in your pancreas that secrete insulin.
That means your sugar levels accumulate in the blood.
Your body goes into this futile tailspin
of breaking down itself.
Eventually you will die.
It is an undeniable outcome without insulin therapy.
But, this drug, insulin, while it's a life saving
hormone, that has to be replaced.
It's very unforgiving.
A small overdose of insulin can be fatal.
When you have the infant with Type I,
you wanna have this good longterm control
because you're looking down the barrel
of it every single day.
Literally no end in site.
This is the rest of your life unless
there's a biological cure.
While I didn't see myself as having the skill sets
to come up with the biological cure,
I did have skill sets that could help
direct a therapy that was much better
and more elegant than what we currently have.
Since that day, we've been trying to develop
an automated, bionic pancreas that is
a paradigm shift in managing diabetes.
My name is Ed Damiano.
I'm a professor of biomedical engineering
at Boston University, but in the past years
I haven't taught at all and that's because I just
felt like I had to prioritize the Bionic Pancreas.
David was born in Spring of '99.
He was a pretty quiet kid the first year
of his life, very healthy.
- And then, just before he turned one and got sick.
I knew it was something.
I hoped it was nothing and I got the phone call
that your son's blood sugar 800 and I shouted to Ed,
we're going to the hospital,
our life has changed, completely.
- In the first weeks, managing it was a particular
challenge because he was an infant.
We couldn't draw up small enough doses of insulin
with the syringes that are available.
It's really not designed for people who weigh 20 pounds.
You've got to sort of thread
the proverbial needle, as I like to say.
A slight overdose of insulin can be fatal
and that's the scary part and you're the one
who gave him that insulin, so you're totally
on the hook for this.
I don't think I felt hopeless, I don't think I felt despair,
but it mobilized me.
Your metabolism needs to me managed continuously, every day.
It takes no vacation. It doesn't take time off at night.
The tools are failing people with Type I Diabetes.
They need better tools, tools that don't require
that they're constantly micromanaging their diabetes.
We built a true medical device that integrates
all of these pieces into one, single device
and we call this device The Islet.
The Islet will automatically determine
how much insulin you're needing
and it will be the first device
to read in glucose data, make the therapeutic decision,
and direct an insulin pump to deliver the right dose.
- Our fear with David was how to keep him safe
and out of harm's way when he goes off to college.
The Islet won't be ready when he goes off to college,
but it will be in clinical trials
and I'm hoping that buy his Sophomore year,
he'll be able to hook up to an Islet.
- For me, I'm at an interesting place,
even if you have mastered your diabetes,
you're never going to be able to do it perfectly.
And that's where automation is so important,
why the Bionic Pancreas could help so much.
My dad has unbelievable endurance,
he can get just four hours of sleep
and still act like a normal human being.
- Developing the entire technology
unbeknownst to us was more work than I expected.
Making sure that this device works for my kid
is the first obligation, but ultimately,
it's gotta serve everybody.
I have no doubt we will succeed in making this technology
everything it can be.