https://news.mit.edu/2023/implantable-device-enable-injection-free-control-diabetes-0918 Skip to content | Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Top Menu| * Education * Research * Innovation * Admissions + Aid * Campus Life * News * Alumni * About MIT * More | Search MIT Search websites, locations, and people [ ] See More Results Suggestions or feedback? MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Subscribe to MIT News newsletter Browse Enter keywords to search for news articles: [ ] Submit Browse By Topics View All - Explore: * Machine learning * Social justice * Startups * Black holes * Classes and programs Departments View All - Explore: * Aeronautics and Astronautics * Brain and Cognitive Sciences * Architecture * Political Science * Mechanical Engineering Centers, Labs, & Programs View All - Explore: * Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) * Picower Institute for Learning and Memory * Media Lab * Lincoln Laboratory Schools * School of Architecture + Planning * School of Engineering * School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences * Sloan School of Management * School of Science * MIT Schwarzman College of Computing View all news coverage of MIT in the media - Listen to audio content from MIT News - Subscribe to MIT newsletter - Close Breadcrumb 1. MIT News 2. An implantable device could enable injection-free control of diabetes An implantable device could enable injection-free control of diabetes The device contains encapsulated cells that produce insulin, plus a tiny oxygen-producing factory that keeps the cells healthy. Anne Trafton | MIT News Publication Date: September 18, 2023 Press Inquiries Press Contact: Sarah McDonnell Email: s_mcd@mit.edu Phone: 617-253-8923 Fax: 617-258-8762 MIT News Office Media Download Two tiny rectangular devices have curved edges. The devices are orange-yellow and are made of a circuit board and soldered pieces, including a diamond-shaped piece of material in the middle. | Download Image Caption: MIT engineers designed an implantable device that carries hundreds of thousands of islet cells along with its own on-board oxygen factory to keep the cells healthy. Credits: Image: Felice Frankel A tiny rectangular device has curved edges and is in water, and bubbles form on top. The device is orange-yellow and has a circuit board and soldered pieces, including a diamond-shaped piece of material in the middle. | Download Image Caption: Pictured is the device submerged in water, generating oxygen (bottom) and hydrogen (top) bubbles without the need for any batteries or wires. Credits: Image: Courtesy of Claudia Liu and Dr. Siddharth Krishnan, MIT/Boston Children's Hospital The tiny device fits on a quarter. The diamond-shaped piece of material is visible, but the rest of the device is covered in gray fibers. | Download Image Caption: This photo shows the cathode side of fully assembled device, with a United States quarter-dollar coin for scale. Credits: Image: Courtesy of Claudia Liu and Dr. Siddharth Krishnan, MIT/Boston Children's Hospital *Terms of Use: Images for download on the MIT News office website are made available to non-commercial entities, press and the general public under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license. You may not alter the images provided, other than to crop them to size. A credit line must be used when reproducing images; if one is not provided below, credit the images to "MIT." Close Two tiny rectangular devices have curved edges. The devices are orange-yellow and are made of a circuit board and soldered pieces, including a diamond-shaped piece of material in the middle. Caption: MIT engineers designed an implantable device that carries hundreds of thousands of islet cells along with its own on-board oxygen factory to keep the cells healthy. Credits: Image: Felice Frankel A tiny rectangular device has curved edges and is in water, and bubbles form on top. The device is orange-yellow and has a circuit board and soldered pieces, including a diamond-shaped piece of material in the middle. Caption: Pictured is the device submerged in water, generating oxygen (bottom) and hydrogen (top) bubbles without the need for any batteries or wires. Credits: Image: Courtesy of Claudia Liu and Dr. Siddharth Krishnan, MIT/Boston Children's Hospital The tiny device fits on a quarter. The diamond-shaped piece of material is visible, but the rest of the device is covered in gray fibers. Caption: This photo shows the cathode side of fully assembled device, with a United States quarter-dollar coin for scale. Credits: Image: Courtesy of Claudia Liu and Dr. Siddharth Krishnan, MIT/Boston Children's Hospital Previous image Next image One promising approach to treating Type 1 diabetes is implanting pancreatic islet cells that can produce insulin when needed, which can free patients from giving themselves frequent insulin injections. However, one major obstacle to this approach is that once the cells are implanted, they eventually run out of oxygen and stop producing insulin. To overcome that hurdle, MIT engineers have designed a new implantable device that not only carries hundreds of thousands of insulin-producing islet cells, but also has its own on-board oxygen factory, which generates oxygen by splitting water vapor found in the body. The researchers showed that when implanted into diabetic mice, this device could keep the mice's blood glucose levels stable for at least a month. The researchers now hope to create a larger version of the device, about the size of a stick of chewing gum, that could eventually be tested in people with Type 1 diabetes. "You can think of this as a living medical device that is made from human cells that secrete insulin, along with an electronic life support-system. We're excited by the progress so far, and we really are optimistic that this technology could end up helping patients," says Daniel Anderson, a professor in MIT's Department of Chemical Engineering, a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), and the senior author of the study. While the researchers' main focus is on diabetes treatment, they say that this kind of device could also be adapted to treat other diseases that require repeated delivery of therapeutic proteins. MIT Research Scientist Siddharth Krishnan is the lead author of the paper, which appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research team also includes several other researchers from MIT, including Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT and a member of the Koch Institute, as well as researchers from Boston Children's Hospital. Replacing injections Most patients with Type 1 diabetes have to monitor their blood glucose levels carefully and inject themselves with insulin at least once a day. However, this process doesn't replicate the body's natural ability to control blood glucose levels. "The vast majority of diabetics that are insulin-dependent are injecting themselves with insulin, and doing their very best, but they do not have healthy blood sugar levels," Anderson says. "If you look at their blood sugar levels, even for people that are very dedicated to being careful, they just can't match what a living pancreas can do." A better alternative would be to transplant cells that produce insulin whenever they detect surges in the patient's blood glucose levels. Some diabetes patients have received transplanted islet cells from human cadavers, which can achieve long-term control of diabetes; however, these patients have to take immunosuppressive drugs to prevent their body from rejecting the implanted cells. More recently, researchers have shown similar success with islet cells derived from stem cells, but patients who receive those cells also need to take immunosuppressive drugs. Another possibility, which could prevent the need for immunosuppressive drugs, is to encapsulate the transplanted cells within a flexible device that protects the cells from the immune system. However, finding a reliable oxygen supply for these encapsulated cells has proven challenging. Some experimental devices, including one that has been tested in clinical trials, feature an oxygen chamber that can supply the cells, but this chamber needs to be reloaded periodically. Other researchers have developed implants that include chemical reagents that can generate oxygen, but these also run out eventually. The MIT team took a different approach that could potentially generate oxygen indefinitely, by splitting water. This is done using a proton-exchange membrane -- a technology originally deployed to generate hydrogen in fuel cells -- located within the device. This membrane can split water vapor (found abundantly in the body) into hydrogen, which diffuses harmlessly away, and oxygen, which goes into a storage chamber that feeds the islet cells through a thin, oxygen-permeable membrane. A significant advantage of this approach is that it does not require any wires or batteries. Splitting this water vapor requires a small voltage (about 2 volts), which is generated using a phenomenon known as resonant inductive coupling. A tuned magnetic coil located outside the body transmits power to a small, flexible antenna within the device, allowing for wireless power transfer. It does require an external coil, which the researchers anticipate could be worn as a patch on the patient's skin. Drugs on demand After building their device, which is about the size of a U.S. quarter, the researchers tested it in diabetic mice. One group of mice received the device with the oxygen-generating, water-splitting membrane, while the other received a device that contained islet cells without any supplemental oxygen. The devices were implanted just under the skin, in mice with fully functional immune systems. The researchers found that mice implanted with the oxygen-generating device were able to maintain normal blood glucose levels, comparable to healthy animals. However, mice that received the nonoxygenated device became hyperglycemic (with elevated blood sugar) within about two weeks. Typically when any kind of medical device is implanted in the body, attack by the immune system leads to a buildup of scar tissue called fibrosis, which can reduce the devices' effectiveness. This kind of scar tissue did form around the implants used in this study, but the device's success in controlling blood glucose levels suggests that insulin was still able to diffuse out of the device, and glucose into it. This approach could also be used to deliver cells that produce other types of therapeutic proteins that need to be given over long periods of time. In this study, the researchers showed that the device could also keep alive cells that produce erythropoietin, a protein that stimulates red blood cell production. "We're optimistic that it will be possible to make living medical devices that can reside in the body and produce drugs as needed," Anderson says. "There are a variety of diseases where patients need to take proteins exogenously, sometimes very frequently. If we can replace the need for infusions every other week with a single implant that can act for a long time, I think that could really help a lot of patients." The researchers now plan to adapt the device for testing in larger animals and eventually humans. For human use, they hope to develop an implant that would be about the size of a stick of chewing gum. They also plan to test whether the device can remain in the body for longer periods of time. "The materials we've used are inherently stable and long-lived, so I think that kind of long-term operation is within the realm of possibility, and that's what we're working on," Krishnan says. "We are very excited about these findings, which we believe could provide a whole new way of someday treating diabetes and possibly other diseases," Langer adds. The research was funded by JDRF, the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health. Share this news article on: * X * Facebook * LinkedIn * Reddit * Print Paper Paper: "A wireless, battery-free device enables oxygen generation and immune protection of therapeutic xenotransplants in vivo" Check for open access version(s) of the research mentioned in this article. Press Mentions 7 News 7 News spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new implantable device that could provide diabetes patients with insulin without using injections. "What we've been able to show is that with a minimally invasive implant that is sitting just under the skin, we've actually been able to sort of achieve a diabetic reversal," explains Research Scientist Siddharth Krishnan. Full story via 7 News - Gizmodo Gizmodo reporter Ed Cara writes that MIT researchers have developed a new implantable device that can produce its own supply of insulin for up to a month. The team envisions that the device could "eventually be used for other medical conditions dependent on a regular supply of externally produced proteins, such as certain forms of anemia treated with erythropoietin," writes Cara. Full story via Gizmodo - The Daily Beast MIT researchers have developed a new implant that in the future could be used to deliver insulin to patients for up to a month, potentially enabling patients to control diabetes without injections, reports Tony Ho Tran for the Daily Beast. In the future, the researchers hope to "develop a device for humans that would be roughly the size of a stick of gum," writes Tran. "The implant could also be used to deliver things like drugs or proteins to help treat other diseases in humans as well." Full story via The Daily Beast - Previous item Next item Related Links * Daniel Anderson * Robert Langer * Koch Institute * Institute for Medical Engineering and Science * Department of Chemical Engineering * School of Engineering Related Topics * Research * Medical devices * Chemical engineering * Diabetes * Health sciences and technology * Medicine * Koch Institute * Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) * School of Engineering * National Institutes of Health (NIH) Related Articles MIT researchers have devised a way to encapsulate therapeutic cells, such as pancreatic islet cells, to treat diabetes, in a flexible protective device. "Living drug factories" might treat diabetes and other diseases MIT engineers have devised a way to incorporate crystallized immunosuppressant drugs into devices carrying encapsulated islet cells, which could allow them to be implanted as a long-term treatment for diabetes. A better way to encapsulate islet cells for diabetes treatment The immune system often builds up a wall of dense scar tissue around implanted medical devices, a process known as fibrosis. The cell shown in blue represents a macrophage that has been blocked from initiating fibrosis. Study points a way to better implants A stealth material surface, shown here, has been engineered to provide an "invisibility cloak" against the body's immune system cells. In this electron microscopy image, you can see the material's surface topography. No more insulin injections? Previous item Next item More MIT News Angled view of a building with many columns and the words Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a sunny spring day MIT releases financials and endowment figures for 2023 The Institute's pooled investments lost 2.9 percent last year; endowment stands at $23.5 billion. Read full story - A group of students huddle together taking a selfie photograph Empowering students to bring change in the Middle East The Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow (MEET) program uses an MIT-inspired curriculum and MISTI student instructors to help young Palestinians and Israelis find common ground. Read full story - Aja Grande poses for portrait surrounded by tropical greenery. A reciprocal relationship with the land in Hawai`i Through community-based research with organizations that work to "ho`omomona hou i ka `aina," or "restore that which feeds back to abundance," PhD student Aja Grande has embarked on a healing journey of her own. Read full story - View of two researchers down a dark corridor in a data center, making adjustments to hardware on large racks lining both walls. New tools are available to help reduce the energy that AI models devour Amid the race to make AI bigger and better, Lincoln Laboratory is developing ways to reduce power, train efficiently, and make energy use transparent. Read full story - Seven portrait photos arranged in two rows MIT SHASS Diversity Predoctoral Fellowship Program welcomes 2023-24 class The fellowship program enhances diversity in SHASS and provides fellows with professional support and mentoring. Read full story - Hand holding a paintbrush, painting on a canvas showing what appears to be a bright yellow planet and pink and blue dots representing dust on a black background The art of science and the science of art "Making Art for Scientists" summer course at MIT invited scientists and engineers to explore new ways to visualize and represent their research. Read full story - * More news on MIT News homepage - More about MIT News at Massachusetts Institute of Technology This website is managed by the MIT News Office, part of the Institute Office of Communications. News by Schools/College: * School of Architecture and Planning * School of Engineering * School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences * MIT Sloan School of Management * School of Science * MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Resources: * About the MIT News Office * MIT News Press Center * Terms of Use * Press Inquiries * Filming Guidelines * RSS Feeds Tools: * Subscribe to MIT Daily/Weekly * Subscribe to press releases * Submit campus news * Guidelines for campus news contributors Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Top Level Links: * Education * Research * Innovation * Admissions + Aid * Campus Life * News * Alumni * About MIT * Join us in building a better world. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA Recommended Links: * Visit * Map (opens in new window) * Events (opens in new window) * People (opens in new window) * Careers (opens in new window) * Contact * Privacy * Accessibility * + Social Media Hub + MIT on X + MIT on Facebook + MIT on YouTube + MIT on Instagram