OpenAPS (Open Artificial Pancreas System) project

General
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I recently learned about the OpenAPS project from Andrew Warrington while attending the Digital Biology Community Gathering in Switzerland. OpenAPS is a great example of an open-source community coming together to solve a serious unmet health need.

It seems like a simple idea – closing the feedback loop between existing continuous glucose monitoring systems and automated insulin pumps – but for whatever reason (e.g., regulatory, economics), the free market system wasn’t providing sufficient incentives for companies to commercialize the technology, leaving it to patients to develop their own solution:

The Open Artificial Pancreas System project (#OpenAPS) is an open and transparent effort to make safe and effective basic Artificial Pancreas System (APS) technology widely available to more quickly improve and save as many lives as possible and reduce the burden of Type 1 diabetes.

There’s a great 5 min documentary and various news articles about the project linked from the OpenAPS homepage.

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wow, how amazing! I had always assumed that there is already a feedback loop which just should be cross checked by manual measurements. I’ll interview ASAP a colleague who wears such an insulin pump… this is unbelievable.
DIYers taking the risk themselves in order to sidestep problematic medial certification, what a gorgeous use case for open hardware!

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