In patients suffering from Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas has lost its ability to produce insulin.
This means that they must regularly inject themselves with insulin.
Serious complications
What is more, they have to take care to adjust the volume of insulin they inject to match the amount of carbohydrates in their diet, their levels of physical activity and stress, their alcohol consumption and so on.
This is very difficult to do, and the consequences of a diabetic person taking an inappropriate dose of insulin can be extremely serious.
Development of an artificial pancreas
A group of DTU Compute researchers has joined forces with Hvidovre Hospital and the company Medtronic to develop an artificial pancreas that continuously and automatically administers the correct volume of insulin. This reduces the risk of consequential illnesses from diabetes and allows people suffering from Type 1 diabetes to live an almost completely normal life.
The development of an artificial pancreas demands in-depth knowledge of mathematical modelling, statistics, scientific computing and computer science.
Dangerous medical tests are avoided
These disciplines are used to develop a computer model that can simulate the glucose metabolism in the human body so as to eliminate the need for dangerous medical experiments. They are also used to calculate the exact dosage of insulin, which is the result of lightning fast, complicated mathematical calculations performed on a smartphone.