New Pumpless Pump
Targets Juvenile Diabetes Treatments
There
is a new prototype treatment technology on the horizon,
designed by Binghamton University chemistry professor
C.J. Zhong. His "pumpless pump" could
make insulin delivery and blood-sugar monitoring
as easy as child's play for the 13,000 children
diagnosed each year with Type 1 diabetes.
Binghamton University professor C.J. Zhong holds
a chip scale model that, when 10 times smaller,
may be implantable in diabetics. The device will
take a blood sample, a sensor will check glucose
levels, and a microchip will tell a pump how much
insulin to deliver.
Zhong wants to miniaturize his pump to the size
of a microchip. For now, though, it's a prototype
rectangle about 3 inches by 2 inches. Channels as
wide as a hair would run along the surface drawing
fluid in; an electric charge carried along platinum
wires would cause the interface of organic and inorganic
liquid to act like a piston, moving up and down
as the polarity is changed.
There are no mechanical components, meaning it doesn't
need to be repaired, and it will never wear down
or stop working, he said. Also, it uses just one
to two volts of electricity -- about as much as
a watch battery.
Not only could a single pump deliver insulin, but
it could monitor blood sugar as well, using much
less blood than current monitoring techniques require.
At microscopic levels, the pump would only need
one picoliter of blood. A single droplet of water
holds hundreds of millions of picoliters.
Depending on the blood sugar results, the pump could
then signal the release of insulin, which would
be stored outside the body and delivered by tube.
Unlike conventional pumps, Zhong's would only have
to be implanted once.
Considered by many to be the most significant leap
forward in diabetes management in the last two decades,
insulin pumps give diabetics greater freedom while
lessening the social isolation that can accompany
the disease.
An easier option might one day be Zhong's implanted
pump. An analytical and materials chemist at heart,
Zhong developed the pump as a way to test minute
samples of material. Diabetes didn't enter his mind.
Zhong's pump is years away from making it to pharmacy
shelves. Zhong has to find funding to further the
research, and even if it proves viable, the pump
faces years of clinical testing.
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