Islet transplantation improves metabolic control in patients with unstable type 1 diabetes. Clinical outcomes have been improving over the last decade, and the widely used beta-score allows the evaluation of transplantation results. However, predictive pre-transplantation criteria of islet quality for clinical outcomes are lacking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn diabetes mellitus (DM) treatment, Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) linked with insulin delivery becomes the main strategy to improve therapeutic outcomes and quality of patients' lives. However, Blood Glucose (BG) regulation with CGM is still hampered by limitations of algorithms and glucose sensors. Regarding sensor technology, current electrochemical glucose sensors do not capture the full spectrum of other physiological signals, .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElectrical signals are fundamental to key biological events such as brain activity, heartbeat, or vital hormone secretion. Their capture and analysis provide insight into cell or organ physiology and a number of bioelectronic medical devices aim to improve signal acquisition. Organic electrochemical transistors (OECT) have proven their capacity to capture neuronal and cardiac signals with high fidelity and amplification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Biomed Eng
February 2022
Objective: Current treatment of type 1 diabetes by closed-loop therapy depends on continuous glucose monitoring. However, glucose readings alone are insufficient for an artificial pancreas to truthfully restore nutrient homeostasis where additional physiological regulators of insulin secretion play a considerable role. Previously, we have developed an electrophysiological biosensor of pancreatic islet activity, which integrates these additional regulators through electrical measurements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiphasic secretion is an autonomous feature of many endocrine micro-organs to fulfill physiological demands. The biphasic activity of islet β-cells maintains glucose homeostasis and is altered in type 2 diabetes. Nevertheless, underlying cellular or multicellular functional organizations are only partially understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnnu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc
July 2020
This paper presents a methodology to tune an artificial pancreas controller by minimizing the time spent in endangering glycaemic ranges (hypo- and hyperglycaemia). The risk associated to the patient's glycaemia is evaluated with an objective metric (the blood glucose risk index), which has an established clinical relevance. The tuned controller is validated in the UVA/Padova environment where the resulting artificial pancreas achieves minimal glucose risk index in realistic 24-hour long scenarios with unannounced glucose intake.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiological systems with intrinsic luminescent properties serve as powerful and noninvasive bioreporters for real-time and label-free monitoring of cell physiology. This study employs the bioluminescent marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri to investigate the effects of separated microwave electric (E) and magnetic (H) fields. Using a cylindrical TM010 mode aluminum resonant cavity, designed to spatially separate E and H fields of a pulsed microwave (2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnhanced understanding and control of electrophysiology mechanisms are increasingly being hailed as key knowledge in the fields of modern biology and medicine. As more and more excitable cell mechanics are being investigated and exploited, the need for flexible electrophysiology setups becomes apparent. With that aim, we designed Multimed, which is a versatile hardware platform for the real-time recording and processing of biosignals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMater Sci Eng C Mater Biol Appl
December 2017
Continuous and long-term monitoring of cellular and micro-organ activity is required for new insights into physiology and novel technologies such as Organs-on-Chip. Moreover, recent advances in stem cell technology and especially in the field of diabetes call for non-invasive approaches in quality testing of the large quantities of surrogate pancreatic islets to be generated. Electrical activity of such a micro-organ results in single cell action potentials (APs) of high frequency and in low frequency changes in local field potentials (slow potentials or SPs), reflecting coupled cell activity and overall organ physiology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe are developing a cell-based bioelectronic glucose sensor that exploits the multi-parametric sensing ability of pancreatic islet cells for the treatment of diabetes. These cells sense changes in the concentration of glucose and physiological hormones and immediately react by generating electrical signals. In our sensor, signals from multiple cells are recorded as field potentials by a micro-electrode array (MEA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims/hypothesis: Ion fluxes constitute a major integrative signal in beta cells that leads to insulin secretion and regulation of gene expression. Understanding these electrical signals is important for deciphering the endogenous algorithms used by islets to attain homeostasis and for the design of new sensors for monitoring beta cell function.
Methods: Mouse and human islets were cultured on multielectrode arrays (MEAs) for 3-13 days.