Artificial Pancreas Will Change Face of Diabetes Care, Says Brown Alpert Medical School’s Fox

Saturday, November 30, 2019

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Diabetes expert Dr. Gregory Fox at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University appeared on "Smart Health" on GoLocal LIVE, where he spoke to the potential for major advancements in treating diabetes -- and how a special camp in Rhode Island helps kids, and their families. 

Fox, who focuses primarily on pediatric Type 1 diabetes, discussed the differences between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and associated risk factors.

"While the end result is pretty much the same, they’re very different disease states — to understand it, you really need to think about insulin which is the key hormone and so endocrinology is the study of hormones. It’s a reasonably big slice of my business," said Fox. 

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"Once we get all the math figured out, and all the FDA approvals, we will have an artificial pancreas," said Fox. "They call it the Bionic Pancreas Project. There are a bunch of really smart people out there that are working to figure this out.  That is absolutely going to change the face of diabetes care — initially for type one, but there’s no reason these technologies don’t spill over into type 2."

"In parallel, there are definitely people looking for the ultimate cure, which would be to alter your immune system to stop the attack on your pancreas before that can really take hold and preserve your pancreas," said Fox. "There’s a lot of people look to stem cell technology — there’s multiple different avenues to get your functioning pancreas back naturally without need the devices. I think that technology is going to be a little bit further behind. I’m hopeful in my lifetime or career."

"I’ve been at the [Warren Alpert] Medical School 20 years — about half the life of the school — and it’s absolutely exploded over the past 20 years," he said. "Kids from all over the country, all over the world want to come to this center because of its reputation."

Camp for Kids

Fox spoke to Camp Surefire — Rhode Island’s only cape for kids with Type 1 diabetes — and share how his own medical experience as a child had prompted him to enter the field

"When I was young, actually, I was diagnosed with arthritis — a non-endocrinology problem — and when I was about seven or eight I spent a lot of time in contact with the medical field and was kind of turned on there," said Fox. "And when I went through college I decided medicine was the place for me."

Editor's Note: A previous version had stated arthritis as being endocrinological -- the article has been reflected to correct it is non-endocrinological.  

Updated Sunday 10:22 p.m. 

 

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