Project description
A pump and smart patch to treat diabetes
As the prevalence of diabetes continues to increase across all ages in Europe, the life expectancy of patients suffering from Type 1 diabetes remains significantly reduced compared to healthy people. The EU-funded PRISMA project is developing an artificial pancreas as a treatment solution for patients with Type 1 diabetes. This device performs a continuous glucose measurement and pumps precise doses of insulin and other hormones needed for treatment. Specifically, a closed-loop artificial pancreas makes it possible to automatically control the blood glucose level using a mixture of multiple hormones simultaneously. The project will focus on a feasibility study to realise a small, lightweight smart patch able to deliver three hormones through silicon microneedles.
Objective
More than 30 million people are living with diabetes in the EU, with a prevalence expected to grow to over 10% of the adult population by the year 2030. Despite modern treatments, the life expectancy of patients with type 1 diabetes remains reduced as compared to healthy people due to lack of efficient therapies. An “artificial pancreas” is the ultimate solution for such therapy: a device performing a continuous glucose measurement and pumping precise doses of insulin and other hormones needed for the treatment. The closed-loop artificial pancreases promises an agile solution where the diabetes patients may effectively feel relieved from their disease as the blood glucose level is automatically controlled using a mixture of multiple hormones simultaneously. Such an innovative technology alleviates the burden of carbohydrate counting and automatically ensuring the optimal glucose level at all times. However, a small, lightweight device which is able to administrate multiple hormones is still lacking. This proposal seeks to develop a novel micro-peristaltic pump on silicon, to be integrated with a transdermal smart patch loaded with the three hormones delivered by silicon microneedles. The PRISMA innovation is possible thanks to the achievements of the FET-OPEN project “BioWings”, where the concept of thin-film micropump using actuating materials has been prototyped.
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
CSA - Coordination and support actionCoordinator
00199 Roma Rm
Italy
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.