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Murray Loew, GW's director of the biomedical engineering program, is working along with diabetes expert and Cornell University pharmacology professor Geoffrey Sharp to perfect and promote a software program that they hope will aid future diabetes research and be useful for a variety of other scientific causes.
Since cellular image analysis - one of the biggest new developments in diabetes research - can only be seen under a microscope, Loew and Sharp are trying to see it utilizing the technology NASA uses to explore images of Earth and space.
Cellular imaging analysis has been heralded as holding great promise for furthering diabetes research that could lead to eventually combating the disease. NASA's programming is now being modified into a tool that could be used to help bring an end to diabetes.
"Having diabetes means constantly having to walk a tightrope." Loew said. "Several companies are working on devices that will make balancing glucose levels simpler, avoiding the need to draw blood, which many people dislike doing."
Diabetes, which affects more that 20 million Americans, is caused by the body's incapacity to regulate glucose from food and utilize it as energy. The hormone insulin is crucial in allowing cells to take up glucose from the bloodstream, and is transported to the plasma membrane of certain cells in the pancreas by structures called granules. Analyzing these granules is a main purpose of the computer program Loew is producing.
In Type I, or juvenile, diabetes, the body stops making insulin, and the hormone must be injected for cells to be able to take up glucose normally. In Type II, or adult onset diabetes, the cell stops responding to insulin and can no longer properly use the glucose that is readily available.
