People with Type 1 diabetes – including University of Alberta graduate student Jonathan Garfinkel – are using free instructions from the Internet to build an artificial pancreas.
The patient-led movement is pushing pharmaceutical companies to improve the treatments they offer, according to U of A diabetes expert Peter Light.
“Diabetics have developed, programmed and are now living on the most sophisticated form of insulin delivery currently available in the world,” said Garfinkel, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Arts who is documenting his own experience as a Type 1 diabetic living through technological changes for his dissertation.