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Beta-O2’s ßAir Bio-Artificial Pancreas May Finally Treat Type-1 Diabetes

by Vishnuprasad on Sep 12 2014 6:48 PM

 Beta-O2’s ßAir Bio-Artificial Pancreas May Finally Treat Type-1 Diabetes
Beta-O2 Technologies Limited, an Israeli biomedical company, announced that its ßAir bio-artificial pancreas would be put through a clinical trial thanks to a grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).
The foundation is a major charitable organization dedicated to funding type 1 diabetes research. The initial trial will involve eight patients at the Uppsala University Hospital in Sweden who will use the new device for approximately two years to evaluate the safety, survival, and function of implanted pancreatic endocrine cells.

The device, developed for the treatment of patients with type 1diabetes (T1D), actually contains islets of Langerhans, cells that produce insulin and glucagon, which are meant to function together much like a healthy pancreas.

Since living cells make a home inside the ßAir device, users will have to keep the colony healthy similarly to the Tamagotchi by feeding it air and oxygenating it every 24 hours.

Replenishing the device is performed through 2 ports implanted under the skin. The company claims that the replenishing device is very user friendly, requires minimal technical skills for operation, and has very few possibilities for incorrect operation.

The procedure takes just about 2 minutes and an alarm will be triggered if something has gone wrong. Within the Bioreactor, the cells are implanted into a hydrogel structure that offers a comfortable environment for the cells to thrive.

Furthermore, this structure offers a protection from the immune system, which means that patients do not need immunosuppressive therapy as would be necessary with a conventional islet transplantation.

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Source-Medindia


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