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Smart Insulin
An experimental drug for diabetes dispenses insulin in response to glucose levels.Maintaining tight control over blood-sugar levels is a daily challenge for people withdiabetes: it requires constant monitoring and multiple insulin injections each day. Now the biotech companySmartCells, based in Beverly, MA, is developing a drug that may do mostof the heavy lifting in controlling diabetes. The injectable drug, called SmartInsulin, senseshigh glucose levels and automatically dispenses insulin on demand. As glucose levels dropoff, the drug stabilizes, trapping insulin until the next glucose spike. Such a drug may cutdown the number of insulin injections required to once a day.
Smart shots:
A new drug thatsenses glucose levels and deliversinsulin on demand may reduce thenumber of daily injections for  patients with diabetes.SmartInsulin works viacompetitive binding, in whichinsulin (orange lines), attached toa sugar group (orange hexagons), binds with a sugar-bindingmolecule (blue circle) in solution.When glucose (blue hexagons) inthe body is high, it competes withinsulin to bind to the sugar- binding molecules, displacinginsulin and releasing it into the bloodstream as needed.Credit: SmartCells
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