People who suffer from Type 1 diabetes will spend a lifetime having to cope with an impaired function of the pancreas, which is a crucial organ of the digestive system. The first generation artificial pancreas is hoping to offer millions of people who at risk, after its very successful clinical trial on humans.

Results of the artificial pancreas shown that it successfully works in humans. The device is called Hypoglycemia-Hyperglycemia Minimizer (HHM) System. It's able to automatically predict a rise and fall in blood glucose levels in Type 1 diabetes sufferers.

The system is comprised of an implantable insulin pump, a glucose monitor, and special software used to predict changes in blood glucose. The successful completion of the study in human clinical trial setting is an important step towards the development of advanced artificial pancreas systems.

Conducted by Animas Corporation and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the feasibility study involved 13 patients each with Type 1 diabetes in the United States. The system was monitored for 24 hours for each participant during periods of open and closed loop control by using a control algorithm with a safety module connected to a laptop.

By the end of the study, the researchers saw that the algorithm worked; it was successfully able to predict a rise and fall in glucose above or below set thresholds, and as a result, was able to send messages to the pump to increase, decrease, or resume insulin infusion accordingly.