D
iabetes is a leading cause of death in the United States, which is why U.Va.’s
interdisciplinary research on diabetes treatment is so important.
Associate Professor Stephen Patek’s work on U.Va.’s artificial pancreas project and
related technologies for advanced treatment of diabetes, in collaboration with the
U.Va. School of Medicine, seeks to reduce the cognitive burden of the disease while
also improving glycemic outcomes through continuous sensing of blood glucose,
algorithmic assessment of treatment alternatives, and automated subcutaneous
insulin infusion.
Unlike feedback control problems encountered in industrial process control, the
“plant” for the artificial pancreas is a human being, who retains ultimate authority
over treatment actions taken by the system, and whose opinion about the role/
authority of automation may change over time.
Over the last five years, Dr. Patek’s group has been developing a modular approach
to algorithm design that allows for smooth transitions between various modes of
operation including (i) “on-demand” treatment recommendations, (ii) preemptive
alerts and cues that encourage the patient to take specific action, (iii) automatic
control of blood glucose extremes (i.e. “control-to-range”) with the patient in charge of
routine events such as meal-time injections, and (iv) full- behaviorally adapted closedloop control. Adaptive technologies for this sort of “collaborative autonomy” will find
broad application in future engineering systems, ranging from intelligent thermostats
to adaptive cruise control.
The Diabetes Assistant (DiAa)
smartphone-based Artificial Pancreas
platform built to support the modular
algorithmic architecture of [1]. The
system has been tested in over
150,000 hours of use in ongoing
clinical and outpatient studies.
R E PRESEN TATI VE PUBLICAT IONS:
“Modular closed-loop control of diabetes,” S. D. Patek, L. Magni, E. Dassau, C. Hughes-Karvetski, C.
Toffanin, G. De Nicolao, S. Del Favero, M. Breton, C. Dalla Man, E. Renard, H. Zisser, F. J. Doyle, III, C.
Cobelli, and B. P. Kovatchev, IEEE Trans Biomed Eng, 59(11):2986–2999, 2012.
“Fully integrated artificial pa ncreas in type 1 diabetes modular closed-loop glucose control main- tains
near normoglycemia,” M. Breton, A. Farret, D. Bruttomesso, S. Anderson, L. Magni, S. Patek, C. Dalla Man, J.
Place, S. Demartini, S. Del Favero, C. Toffanin, C. Hughes-Karvetski, E. Dassau, F. J. Doyle III, G. De Nicolao,
A. Avogaro, C. Cobelli, E. Renard, and B. P. Kovatchev Kovatchev. Diabetes, 61(9):2230–2237, 2012.
U.Va. ENGINEERING
5