Dealing with diabetes:Artifical pancreas

[deleted-291769]

Hi,
I am entering the Google science fair next year and have thought about doing the artificial pancreas project, i am 16 and want to know if this project is worth doing for the google science fair and I could add anything to it to make it more challenging.

also, i am thinking of changing the project a little by making the pancreas and proposing the question: How Efficient is an artificial pancreas in regulations blood sugar levels?
I will compare this to a healthy persons sugar levels and conclude how good an artificial pancreas is?

[deleted-249560]

You'll have fun doing the project and you'll learn a lot about diabetes in your research. Whether you should do this or something else for the fair is up to you. It will partly depend on whether you use this idea as a springboard and take it further or not, and how driven you are to enter a project that catches a lot of attention. Lots of students use project ideas from the site and turn them into amazing, attention-grabbing ideas. Since anyone can do them exactly as presented they don't tend to stand out at fairs unless you take them in new directions.

How Efficient is an artificial pancreas in regulations blood sugar levels?
I will compare this to a healthy persons sugar levels and conclude how good an artificial pancreas is?

If you decide to explore the efficiency and performance of an artificial pancreas, you will want to search the web and possibly contact some companies working on that research. The simulation in this project is simply a representative model that uses acid and base solutions to model what a real device might do with sugar. A real device would also have to be predictive and guess how the levels might change over time. In this model, once the solutions are mixed the pH isn't going to change. That's not true with blood sugar.

Perhaps an approach will be to look into your question as your project and then present some variation of the site project as a simulation to get people to hang around your display and talk with you. As a judge at fairs I've enjoyed talking with students who did exactly that.

[deleted-291769]

If i was to take it further, then what do you propose i research into, to take it to a next level that would grab attention ?

Also, i am entering an online fair and that's why i need something that would really grab their attention. Any ideas please?

[deleted-249560]

Here are a few things that jump to the top of my head:

1) Investigate sensors that can actually measure glucose and redo the system so that it dilutes a sugar solution instead of neutralizing an acid. Companies such as Medtronics make wearable insulin pumps that have sensors you insert into the body to measure glucose levels continuously throughout the day. How do those sensors work? Can you make one and connect it to a circuit or a computer (such as an Arduino) to control the pump in that project? You might try contacting companies and asking if you can get access to a sensor for an experiment. Explain that you're a student and will use it responsibly with the supervision of a qualified teacher.

2) Sticking with the existing model, enhance it so that it better simulates the changing glucose levels in the body. When you eat the sugar levels go up, so perhaps adding something to the project to slowly drip more acid solution into the system. Think about the body as a whole and see what you can come up with to make it a more realistic scenario.

Do either of those seem like something in your wheelhouse?

Howard

[deleted-291769]

Thanks a lot, number 2 got me thinking so here's what I've come up with;

i will add a drip to the experiment for continuous acid and i will add a certain amount at certain times. For example, i will add more of the acid in the morning simulating breakfast and in the afternoon simulating lunch. Then i could compare it to a person who's sugar levels regulate normaly and could get it from a university. Does that sound better?

[deleted-249560]

The addition of the drip is a good solution to making the model more realistic. Getting the research data and showing how your model simulates the changes in the body over time that and your pump mechanism adapts and adjusts the chemistry certainly helps a lot. Perhaps more will come to you as you proceed with this.

[deleted-291769]

If i was to follow number 1 would i need to change all the experiment or just add the glucose monitor?

what parts of the model would i need to be changed?

[deleted-249560]

Working with glucose instead of the acid/base simulation would take some more digging. I'm not aware of any glucose sensor that you can just buy from someone. There probably is *something* and maybe someone else here has an idea. The companies that produce continuous glucose monitors certainly have invented them and they use them for their own products. You can buy one of those somehow and take it apart, but I'll bet that one of the companies would help you with that if you asked nicely and explained that you're a student and want to learn about this. Companies will encourage students to get excited about their tech - who knows? a student like you might invent something they can sell.

So this mint be a lot more involved. You'd have to get a sensor, connect it to something that can read it (which will likely require a computer of some kind) and then use that to control the pump. It's much more involved but I can assure you that a fair judge will look at that effort and be impressed.

[deleted-291769]

I have contacted a few companies and am awaiting response.
I will go ahead with the sensor modification but i was thinking, i will perform the same experiment but compare how efficiently an artificial pancreas treats type 1 diabetes vs type 2. This is because type 1 is when there is no insulin but type 2 is the presence of insulin.

What do you think? Also, how could i add the type 2 diabetes element of insulin already being in the body?

[deleted-249560]

Yes, type 2 is when the insulin is present but the body doesn't use it properly. I'm not coming up with any of extending this model to simulate that or simulate a treatment. I'd definitely suggest discussing that in your presentation to make it clear that you've researched this but I'm not sure what sort of model you could make to demonstrate it. Hopefully someone else reading this forum has a suggestion.

I hope you get a positive response from a company. I can tell you that if a student asked a company where I worked for a sensor so they could explore something like this, I'd be thrilled to send them one.

Howard

[deleted-291769]

I was wondering....as i won't do the acid solution but instead do the glucose one, are glucose and insulin available to buy from the Internet etc.

Also, as I'm doing the glucose sensor instead of the acid base solution will i still need to purchase all of the equipment listed in your project ssection?