PharmaTelevision - MGH & BU: Steven Russell & Edward R. Damiano on Artificial Endocrine Pancreas

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Video title: MGH & BU: Steven Russell & Edward R. Damiano on Artificial Endocrine Pancreas

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In this episode of PharmaTelevision News Review, Fintan Walks with Steven Russell from Massachusetts General Hospital and Edward R. Damiano from Boston University about an artificial endocrine pancreas as a way to improve the therapy for people with type I diabetes by measuring blood glucose every 5 minutes and automatically infusing insulin. They discuss:

• Edward R. Damiano's research background in artificial pancreas

• Steven J. Russell's interest and involvement in Type 1 diabetes research

• Development of technology to adjust mathematical algorithm from animal to human

• Funding for clinical trials

• Results and key findings from first stage clinical trials

• Complications of Hypoglycemia

• What is needed from the pharmaceutical industry for the device?

• Next stages of device development

• Partnership and collaboration strategy

Full video transcripts are available with PharmaTelevision Premium Content. Click here to buy a subscription or sign up for a 14 day free trial.

Edward R. Damiano's research background in artificial pancreas

Fintan Walton:

Hello and welcome to PharmaTelevision News Review here at BioPharm America in Boston. On this show I have Steven J. Russell and Edward R. Damiano, welcome to the show.

Steven J. Russell:

Thank you.

Edward R. Damiano:

Thank you.

Fintan Walton:

Edward R. Damiano, I am gonna start with you, you're a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, we are gonna talk about an artificial pancreas in fact an artificial endocrine pancreas and it was your early work that lead into this research we were gonna talk about, could you give us the background to that?

Steven J. Russell:

Sure, when my son was 11 months old he was diagnosed with Type I diabetes, and it was at that point that I realized that I potentially had a role to play in improving the lives of people with Type I diabetes, I was motivated to find a way to improve the therapy in which people are managed with diabetes. So I started working with a graduate student of mine Firas El-Khatib to develop a technology which automatically infuses insulin, which lowers blood glucose to automatically regulate my son's blood sugar anybody with Type I diabetes, so one of that is general algorithm mathematical formulation that makes therapeutic decisions every five minutes or so to automatically infuse insulin there by removing the clinician or the caregiver from the loop, so essentially you have to sense blood sugar and get blood glucose values in order to inform yourself as to how to regulate blood sugar and need to infuse insulin response to that information and there are some decisions that are being mailed all the time throughout the day to manage this information and you know we decided this could be potentially be automated now that there have been a lot of people thinking about these problems, so we have we thinked several unique approaches to the problem so we began developing this technology, and soon there after we started testing it in animal model and when I presented those results at the Joslin Diabetes centre in the spring of 2006 I met Steven J. Russell who was in the audience at that time and he approached me and suggested that we are ready to move to a clinical trials.

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Fintan Walton

Dr Walton is the Founder and CEO of PharmaTelevision. After completing his doctoral research on the genetics of cell proliferation at the University of Michigan (US) and Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), Dr Walton gained broad commercial experience in biotechnology in management positions at Bass and Celltech plc (1982-1992).

Edward R. Damiano

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Edward R. Damiano Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. His educational training is in the areas of biomedical and mechanical engineering, applied mechanics, and applied mathematics. His research group is engaged in basic scientific research that combines fluid dynamics with intravital microscopy to study blood flow in the microcirculation and to elucidate mechanisms by which the lining of blood vessels determines vascular health and disease. In particular, his lab has been focusing on the endothelial glycocalyx, which forms a complex hydrated mesh of cell surface macromolecules that is situated at the interface between the luminal vascular wall and flowing blood. His group has developed new analytical and experimental tools to interrogate the glycocalyx in vivo and in vitro. They have demonstrated that this layer of macromolecules extends ~500 nm from the wall of healthy blood vessels, but is significantly degraded in the presence of vascular inflammation Chronic hyperglycemia. His group is also testing therapeutic interventions aimed at preventing and counteracting the damage to the glycocalyx, which may underlie vascular pathologies such as atherosclerosis and microvascular complications associated with diabetes. In addition to this research, he is also personally committed to creating and integrating closed-loop control technologies for automatically regulating blood glucose in diabetes. After testing and qualifying his group's blood-glucose control algorithms in diabetic swine, their system became the first academically sponsored investigational device to receive FDA approval for testing in subjects with type 1 diabetes. The first-phase clinical trial testing their device was recently completed at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The second-phase clinical trial is underway in children and adults with type 1 diabetes.

Steven J. Russell

Steven J. Russell MD, PhD is an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an Assistant in Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and a staff physician in the Massachusetts General Hospital Diabetes Center in Boston Massachusetts. He received his, doctoral degrees from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas and completed his residency and fellowship training at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, with certifications in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism. His research focuses on the use of technology to improve the care of patients with diabetes or hyperglycemia of critical illness. Dr. Russell directs human studies in an interdisciplinary effort to develop an artificial endocrine pancreas for automated blood glucose regulation. He also has a basic research program at the Joslin Diabetes exploring the role of insulin signaling in the regulation of mammalian aging.

PharmaVentures

PharmaVentures is a corporate finance and transactions advisory firm that has served hundreds of clients worldwide in relation to their strategic deal making in the pharmaceutical, life science and healthcare sectors. Our key offerings include: Transactions / deal negotiations; Product / technology valuations; Deal term advice; Due diligence & expert reports; Strategy formulation; Alliance management; and Expert opinion for litigation/arbitration cases. PharmaVentures provides the global expertise to ensure our clients generate the highest possible return on investment from all their deal making activities. We have experience of all therapeutic areas and can offer advice on both product and technology commercialization.

Boston University

Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized private research university with more than 30,000 students participating in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. As Boston University's largest academic division, the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences is the heart of the Boston University experience, creating an extensive global reach that enhances the University's reputation for teaching and research.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, established in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Massachusetts General Hospital conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $600 million. The hospital is home to major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, photomedicine, regenerative medicine, systems biology, transplantation biology as well as a number of others.