Dana Lewis has Type 1 diabetes, which means her pancreas doesn’t work the way it should: It doesn’t make the insulin she needs to survive.

So, she built a new one.

It’s not a biological organ. Lewis’ artificial pancreas system (APS) is an open-source computer system that monitors her blood sugar level and gives her body insulin as needed, building on the insulin pump and glucose monitor that she’s been using for years.

Now, Lewis is known as the founder of the open source APS and leads a community of DIY diabetes patients who are constantly innovating new technology to help manage the condition.

She’s built a technology that is already changing and saving the lives of people with Type 1 diabetes, and she made it happen years before commercial devices have reached the market.
Lewis started working on OpenAPS two years ago, and at first, she didn’t intend to build a computer system at all.

Like thousands of other people with Type 1 diabetes, Lewis was using a continuous glucose monitor to track her blood sugar level around the clock.


And because she can’t keep track of her blood sugar level around the clock, her levels would still spike or drop without her noticing, when she was exercising or after a big meal, for example. She would only realize afterward when her monitor sounded the alarm.

So Lewis thought: Why not program a computer to keep track of this? She teamed up with her boyfriend to develop an algorithm that automates all the math she does every day and also takes initiative to stop her blood sugar level from spiking.

Now Lewis’s APS monitors her blood sugar around the clock and reacts with very little input from her. It’s made up of her glucose monitor, her insulin pump and a small hardware rig built on an Intel Edison computer.


The Open Source Artificial Pancreas system includes a commercial insulin pump (top left) and continuous glucose monitor (bottom left). The brains of the system are in a hardware rig (right) composed of a small computer, radio stick and battery.(GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)
“I went from being afraid to go to sleep at night and having to text my mom every morning as my safety balance to — I don’t have to do that anymore,” she said. “Until you have that fear, it’s really hard to articulate what a burden that has lifted off of you.”

“It’s not a cure, but it helps so much and it cuts down immensely on the number of lows and highs that I experience, and that security is just priceless,” she said.




Source: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/health-tech-podcast-one-woman-built-artificial-pancreas-started-diy-movement/

Nice