Hear ye! Hear ye! I have an announcement to make. About 3 months ago, a committee formed to explore the possibility of creating a new conference series for adults with type 1 diabetes. Most conferences are currently geared towards all types of diabetes, but a group of us felt there should be more for the unique challenges that are posed to adults living with type 1.

With that in mind, we are conducting an interest study for the conference. Who would you like to see at the conference? Tell us what is missing from Type 1 diabetes (besides the obvious **cure**). This will help us with programming, as well as securing sponsorships for the event. Besides giving you all you want from the latest and greatest in type 1 diabetes - you have a chance to leave your mark on this revolutionary event. At the end of the survey, there is a question about creating a name for the conference. The committee will choose the winning name. The winner will receive an autographed copy of Know Your Numbers, by Amy Tenderich and Dr. Richard Jackson. The second and third places prizes are a Six Until Me mug and a Diabetes Mine mug, donated by Kerri Morrone and Amy Tenderich.

The survey closes on Friday, September 7, 2007 so don't miss your opportunity to voice your opinion. Take the survey today!!

Yesterday was a big day at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International's (JDRF) Children's Congress 2007. Mary Tyler Moore, veteran JDRF International Chairman, stepped up to the plate and testified at the U.S. Senate hearing "The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Federal Government: A Model Public-Private Partnership Accelerating Research Toward a Cure." I think she smacked a home run, and if JDRF lands the research dollars they are requesting, scratch that, she hit a grand slam.

Currently, the federal government is chipping in $150 million in research funding to the Special Diabetes Program, which was originally established in 1997, representing 35 percent of federal funding for diabetes research. Moore explained how the Special Diabetes Program deploys federal dollars quite differently than traditional National Institutes of Health funds as it supports unique, collaborative consortia and clinical trials networks focusing on type 1 diabetes. JDRF is now asking Congress to increase the Special Diabetes Program funding to $200 million a year for another five years.

These federal dollars are not stand-alone funds, hence the "Model Public-Private Partnership." JDRF is kicking in $170 million (big $$) next year, the most they've ever spent. Three times more than they funded in 1999, the year the very first JDRF Children's Congress traveled to D.C. JDRF is in the midst of a growing flurry of clinical research, initiating eight new clinical trials this year, for a total of 29 active clinical trials (compared to five clinical trials running in 2000). Now that is real progress.

Join Dr. Aaron Kowalski for a live chat on the Artificial Pancreas Project, December 12 at 9pm Eastern Standard Time. Thanks to Gina Capone of Diabetes Talkfest, you will have a chance to ask questions and learn more about this tremendous project poised to revolutionize diabetes management.

Dr. Kowalski and his brother Stephen have lived with type 1 diabetes for the greater part of their lives. Visit YouTube® to view a 10 minute presentation Dr. Kowalski gave, where he shares his personal story on the tough issues diabetes has raised in his life. He describes how his brother's hypoglycemic unawareness impacted his daily life for the past 30 years and Kowalski explains how an artificial pancreas would benefit people with type 1 diabetes.

Managing diabetes is a full time job. Emotions need not apply. In a perfect world, your job is to keep your blood sugars in the range of 80 to 120 always. There is no exception to this rule. We all know abiding this law is nearly impossible because we are not machines. A device programmed to enforce this policy and arrest sugars precariously trending out of this range is exactly what we need to oversee our safe existence. The YouTube video is a great appetizer to the live chat. I hope you all can attend Tuesday night on Diabetes Talkfest. See you there!

Over 50 years ago medical technology introduced us to an artificial kidney. Since then, the movement has continued to yield a whole array of bio-artificial parts like: artificial blood, heart valves, replacement joints, and heart-lung machines. This begs the question, what's taking the artificial pancreas so long?

The U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is holding a hearing titled "The Potential of an Artificial Pancreas: Improving Care for People with Diabetes" on Wednesday September 27th. Testifying before the committee will be: Arnold Donald (JDRF President and CEO), Dr. Griffin P. Rodgers (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health Acting Director), Chris Dudley (former NBA star and founder of The Dudley Foundation), and Caroline K. Sweeney accompanied by her son Aidan T. Sweeney.

The hearing was informative, statistically sobering and technically effective. The emotional outpouring Caroline Sweeney gave in her testimony emphasized the forbidding stresses diabetes can impose on a family. I can sympathize with Carolne and empathize with Aidan. This disease can be controlled with minimal emotional collateral. Hopefully the hearing will trigger someone with the wherewithal to assign the federal funding needed to eradicate another heartbreaking testimony like that of Caroline Sweeney.

An artificial pancreas is a machine with a real-time glucose sensor and an insulin delivery system. This will enable a diabetic to maintain normal glucose and HbA1c levels by automatically providing the right amount of insulin at the right time, just as the pancreas does in people without the disease.

According to Dr. Aaron Kowalski, Director of Strategic Research Projects for JDRF, "When a person has type 1 diabetes, maintaining an acceptable blood sugar level is a constant struggle. Tight control is very difficult for most, and as a result diabetes patients run the risk of developing severe and even deadly complications. The artificial pancreas will revolutionize diabetes care because it carries the potential of eliminating these complications and easing the tremendous burden of diabetes."

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation launched the JDRF Artificial Pancreas Project in late 2005 to expedite the availability of this rapidly emerging technology for people with type 1 diabetes. Through research and advocacy, the JDRF project aims to speed regulatory approval, health insurance coverage, and clinician adoption of promising new artificial pancreas technologies.

Is anybody else excited about this? It won't be long before I can eighty-six the nuisance of checking my blood sugars and leave it up to the algorithms of a little robot software guy, behind the scenes. Okay, not exactly-but still, it would be awesome!

Blood sugar testing is part of the daily grind when it comes to diabetes management. Albeit important, it is also the main frustration of my diabetic control. Yes, it only takes all of thirty seconds, start to finish. But I tend to think, each and every time, that's thirty seconds I'll never get back. And then I do the mental math for recreational torture: 4 tests a day, 30 seconds each, 365 days a year, 20 years...you get the idea. I'd like to review two options that might offer some remedy from the inconvenience of glucose testing: the glucowatch, and the artificial pancreas.

The glucowatch is intended for detecting trends and tracking patterns in glucose levels in adults and children with diabetes. It's available by prescription, only. The site disclaims, The G2 Biographer is intended to supplement, not replace, conventional blood glucose monitoring. Several years ago I journeyed west into NYC to guinea pig myself in the clinical testing of the watch. Does anybody use this thing?

The artificial pancreas is a man-made organ that has three parts, all of which have to work perfectly in synch: a sensor that continually monitors blood or tissue sugar levels, an insulin infusion pump, and a computer algorithm that controls the delivery of insulin minute by minute based on measured blood sugar. The brilliance of artificial intelligence might be our remedy while we patiently await the cure.

If anybody knows of other options to mitigate the annoyance of blood glucose testing-blog it back!

In case you hadn't guessed, today's phrase of the day is "artificial pancreas." Yet more news of developments in the race to create an artificial pancreas: (See my previous two blogs for details.) This time, the development concerns DexCom's STS continuous glucose monitoring system (pictured), which has just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. DexCom's device works through implantation: it is placed under the patient's skin, alerting diabetic wearers when glucose levels are too high or too low. Like the developers of other continuous glucose monitoring systems (including those companies mentioned in my previous blogs), there are hopes that a system such as this one could be paired with an implantable insulin pump. The two devices, working in tandem, could effectively act as an artificial pancreas, and could make a huge difference to the lives of people with diabetes.

In my previous blog, I talked about the Food and Drug Administration's statement of the need for scientists to develop an artificial pancreas for diabetics. In theory, this could be achieved by combining a continuous blood-monitoring device with an insulin pump. Such a device has the potential to free diabetics from the need for frequent self-administered blood tests and insulin shots. In my previous blog, I discussed this with reference to the efforts of New York-based biotech startup Altradian Diagnostics to develop an artificial pancreas. However, and not surprisingly, Altradian is not alone in the race to bring about this new technology. The Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, working in partnership with MiniMed, Inc., hopes to develop its own version of the artificial pancreas. Unlike Altradian's external blood-monitoring system, which attaches to the skin with a micro-needle, this system is based upon an implantable glucose sensor (prototype pictured at right). Scientists hope that the sensor could be paired with an insulin pump implanted in the abdomen. Read more about how the sensor and pump function, and how they could be made to work in tandem, at the Department of Energy's Office of Science website.

The Food and Drug Administration recently declared the development of an artificial pancreas to be on its "critical path opportunities" list, and stated that such a device could "revolutionize diabetes care and management." A small biotech startup company is among those racing to meet this goal, and has just secured the financial backing it needs. The company, Ultradian Diagnostics, LLC, is based at New York State University's Albany campus. Ultradian is working on a continuous blood-glucose monitoring device, which diabetics could use instead of repeated daily finger stick (pictured) or blood draws. The continuous monitoring system is attached to the skin with a micro-needle. Ultimately, Ultradian hopes to pair the device with an insulin pump - essentially creating an artificial pancreas. Read more at msnbc.com.