Dr. Boris Kovatchev leads an international diabetes research team at UVA. Read more about the team and the financial supporters who are helping make it happen. A special “Thank You” to Fred and Susan Russell of The Banting Foundation.
Boris P. Kovatchev, Ph.D, and I show off the AP after my afternoon walk. Dr. Boris is the Director of the UVA Center for Diabetes Technology and the person who is building the ” brain ” or algorithm that makes the AP possible.
Have Artificial Pancreas; Will Travel.
Dr. Daniel Chernavvsky, Clinical Research Coordinator, and I display the AP as the 24-hour clinical trial ends March 15. I did NOT want to give it back to him. I’m sure he was watching me closely, LOL.
That’s the word today from Daniel Cherñavvsky, MD, CRC with the University of Virginia Health System. “Yes, we completed the trial in Santa Barbara and the following article published in Diabetesmine.com talks about it.,” Dr. Daniel tells me. “We are ready to do the trial overseas” in France and Italy next.
Yes! The AP outpatient trial was done with participants in California in April and provided more details and data. For Daniel, the next stop on the road trip is to bring the technology to his research colleagues in France and Italy. This is all building toward home trials — yes, home trials in the real world in 2014 — by PWDs ( persons with diabetes) while being closely monitored by doctors and researchers via remote technology!
Here is a brief excerpt from the Diabetesmine.com article.
“This is all very exciting! Although when you think about it, 48 hours is a pretty short timeframe to get a realistic read on any PWD’s ongoing patterns of glucose swings. I wondered how realistic the algorithm patterns were…
“We’re just dipping our toes in the stream right now,” Dr. Howard Zisser said. “We’re going with our ‘best guess’ until we can do week-long studies.” Meanwhile, patient Jim wasn’t complaining a bit over 48 hours of long-awaited freedom. “It’s soooo nice — I don’t have to do anything!” he crooned, with his eyes all a’twinkle. Dr. Zisser just grinned. “We’re learning and developing things along the way,” he said. “It’s like the space program. We’re going to the moon, and along the way we get Tang, and who knows what other innovations that come out of the process?”
Local TV Station Covers My Clinical Trial At UVA — Adds A Human Element To Complex Topic
First, my apologies to followers or readers of We R the Cure — I’ve owed you a follow up to my experience wearing the actual Artificial Pancreas in a clinical trial at UVA since late March. Here is part 2.
Before leaving UVa and giving back the AP, I pose with a few of the team members who watched over me and conducted the outpatient trial. L to R: my nurse, Crystal Leathers, computer engineer Benton MIze, and Stacey Anderson, MD.
Second, the headline of this post could have been written by thousands of Americans who are living with Type 1 diabetes and keeping ” Hope Alive ” that a solution like the AP is coming. Of course, solutions and “cures” have been promised by doctors, researchers, fundraisers and good-hearted volunteers for decades. I don’t believe in the tooth fairy either.
So rather than bore you with my prediction of when the AP will be built, approved and commercially available, I suggest you Google or Bing the topic and take a deep dive into the facts and the promises surrounding ” WHEN ?”
Here are some of the things I learned from my 24 hour period with Dr. Boris Kovatchev and his amazingly talented team of doctors, nurses, researchers and technology pioneers at the UVA Center of Diabetes Technology in Charlottesville, VA. Hopefully, you’ll see something here that gives you a dose of optimism for our future. A future filled with less daily stress and better diabetic health.
I’ve got renewed hope and excitement about the AP. How long before we’re all able to wear one? I’m hoping for three to five years. It’s going to take
AP SmartPhone shows Flat Line 167 mg/dl of awesome glucose control after dinner and prior to bedtime on March 14, 2013.
more time, brains, private sector investment and more research dollars to make this a reality. As many Type 1 Ds or Diabetes Online Community members have said before me: ” the solution is coming; it’s my job to keep myself in the best possible shape — to closely monitor and control my sugar levels — so I’ll be healthy enough to benefit from the AP when it arrives.”
It’s not a cure for diabetes. That’s still our goal. But, the AP ship is sailing on the horizon and is about to dock. I want to be ready when our ship finally comes in.
OK, so the headline might be a little bit over the top. My apologies. However, I was wearing the ” Future ” of high tech diabetes self-management, and it was amazing, incredible and a breath of fresh air.
I was blessed to actually plug in and wear the Artificial Pancreas in a human clinical trial at UVa on March 14 and 15. The AP is not exactly like clicking the Arc Reactor into your chest, but the two devices are similar. It is a new, high-tech device that brings the promise of: better health; less daily stress for you and your family, and the powerful hope of fewer long-term medical complications from diabetes such as blindness, heart attacks, strokes and amputations.
For 24 wonderful hours, I felt like Iron Man — without the cool cars, the ability to fly, the Malibu mansion or the lifestyle of Robert Downey, Jr. But the experience was still “Super Hero-like” for someone like me who has battled the ” Super Villan” Type 1D for 14 years and been unable to achieve consistent glucose control. The AP is not a cure for diabetes, but it does offer a solution or pathway to better health outcomes for the 3 million Americans living with Type 1 diabetes.
After missing an opportunity to participate in the last AP trial, this time I passed the FDA’s strict health screening ( done May 11) and was invited by the research team at the UVA Center for Diabetes Technology to participate in a shortened outpatient trial. Recently, the UVA team successfully completed a 48-hour pilot study with 5 individuals — to prove that a ” wearable AP is feasible and safe; therefore its continued testing and refinement for outpatient use is warranted,” according to Boris P. Kovatchev, Ph.D., the lead investigator and Director of the center.
In the prior study, the AP participants led a ” normal ” life and were able to eat and sleep without the constant finger pricks and mental burden of ” how’s my sugar doing now?” Check out Tom Brobson’s video story of his UVa trial experience. This was the first out-patient study done in the United States.
As a follow-up to this clinical trial, my one-person study was not designed to test the AP algorithm or to determine if the software worked. We know the AP works — and it worked again for me in this trial! The UVa team called me for a ” dry run” test to see if a new hardware solution — a fix to provide an uninterrupted source of power to the AP and the CGM — would prevent the battery ” burn out” that happened during the previous trials. This is where ” BRICK 1 ” comes in. The researchers designed a new power and communication system to be combined within one unit. The good news: the ” Brick” designed appeared to work exactly as the researchers expected during my 24-hour test, providing consistent data reporting with no gaps!
The team put the AP SmartPhone, CGM, Bluetooth wireless communication equipment all together in ” Brick 1″ — this is what I carried with me and how I communicated with my insulin pump. And instead of staying put in a hospital or hotel room, I was able to carry the AP/CGM Brick with me as I walked to dinner at the College Inn on ” The Corner” across from campus and again for lunch on Friday. As Dr. Boris joked with the local NBC TV reporter, “this is the first time ever anyone with the artificial pancreas has been outside walking in a parking lot.” One small step for man, one giant leap for AP research!
Dr. Boris, Dr. Daniel and Benton Mize, the computer engineer working on the AP design, said the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) — which is regulating and monitoring all human clinical trials performed in Charlottesville and the 4 other AP consortium universities in the USA, France and Italy — needs clinical proof the technology works and that patients in non-hospital trials will be safe from low glucose episodes. The technology must give researchers uninterrupted remote monitoring capability of participants on a 24/7 basis when AP home trials start in 2014.
My bottom line — the AP worked as advertised. I was involved in determining my meal boluses and counting my carbs ( the control factor). The AP was able to operate in ” safe mode ” while I slept and ” closed loop” mode while I ate dinner or exercised. It essentially acted like a normal pancreas does providing sugar control automatically. The CGMs and the AP monitored my sugar every 5 minutes and adjusted by basal rates ( baseline insulin dose) up or down to help me achieve the best possible glucose control with the least amount of work.
And thanks to the AP and the awesome team at UVa, I had the freedom to go to bed and sleep all night with no 2 am lows. I maintained a Flat Line sugar reading overnight and woke up the same — and that’s a “Super Hero” result and the promise of a bright future for everyone living with Type 1 diabetes.
Next post: I’ll add a few more observations from my clinical trial; Dr. Daniel’s trip to the University of California for a new outpatient clinical trial with the AP and “BRICK 1″; and Dr. Boris’ talks with manufacturers to get better quality technology for the AP.
News We Can Use, March 4 via PRNewsWire
When it is ready, the AP Algorithm will run on any SmartPhone and fit in your pocket.
– LifeScan, Inc. announced today that the OneTouch® Verio®Sync Blood Glucose Monitoring System has received clearance from the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA). It is the first meter to automatically send blood glucose results wirelessly via Bluetooth technology to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch using the OneTouch® Reveal™ mobile app.
“For so many people, their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch have become a tool of choice to help organize and take charge of their daily lives,” said Ty Lee , Vice President of Marketing, representing the products of LifeScan, Inc. & Animas Corp. “For people with diabetes, the new OneTouch® Verio®Sync System will enable them to use their iOS device to view and share their blood glucose results wirelessly, in much the same way they rely on them in other areas of their lives.”
Through the OneTouch® Reveal™ mobile app, users will be able to view a variety of personalized information directly on their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch including a 14-day summary of blood sugar test results, simple visuals showing the percentage of test results within target range, and then share that information via email or text with their care providers, family or friends.
People with diabetes interested in learning more are encouraged to visit www.OneTouch.com where they can sign up to receive email updates on availability and special introductory offers for the OneTouch® Verio®Sync System.
A few years ago, a child under the age of 9 years presented this to a room full of adults at a JDRF fundraiser in Richmond, VA. Her concise and beautiful talk captivated the room. It says a lot about the daily grind of a child, a parent caring for a child, or an adult living with Type 1 diabetes. More than 3 million Americans face this daily Type 1 D drama in order to stay alive.
Try this. What does it feel like to test your blood sugar or take an insulin shot — 8 times a day.
As 2012 ends and 2013 begins, it’s time to energize We R the Cure. Here’s my starting point.
I encourage you to try this simple yet realistic “day in the life” of a person living with diabetes. To feel what it’s like to test your blood sugar like me, put a rubber band around your wrist and snap it each time you see my handprint or needle. Eight times or more a day.
