Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Endocrinology Volume 2013, Article ID 245152, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/245152 Research Article Blood Glucose Control Using a Novel Continuous Blood Glucose Monitor and Repetitive Intravenous Insulin Boluses: Exploiting Natural Insulin Pulsatility as a Principle for a Future Artificial Pancreas Nils K. Skjaervold, 1,2 Dan Östling, 3 Dag R. Hjelme, 3,4,5 Olav Spigset, 6,7 Oddveig Lyng, 8 and Petter Aadahl 1,2 1 Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, MTFS, Postbox 8905, 7491 Trondheim, Norway 2 Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Trondheim University Hospital, Postbox 3250 Sluppen, 7006 Trondheim, Norway 3 Invivosense Norway Ltd., c/o NTNU Technology Transfer, Sem Saelands Vei 14, 7034 Trondheim, Norway 4 Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway 5 Faculty of Technology, Sør-Trøndelag University College, Postbox 2320, 7004 Trondheim, Norway 6 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Children’s and Women’s Health, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway 7 Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Trondheim University Hospital, Postbox 3250 Sluppen, 7006 Trondheim, Norway 8 Unit of Comparative Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway Correspondence should be addressed to Nils K. Skjaervold; nils.k.skjervold@ntnu.no Received 13 August 2013; Accepted 24 October 2013 Academic Editor: Julia Mader Copyright © 2013 Nils K. Skjaervold et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. he aim of this study was to construct a glucose regulatory algorithm by employing the natural pulsatile pattern of insulin secretion and the oscillatory pattern of resting blood glucose levels and further to regulate the blood glucose level in diabetic pigs by this method. We developed a control algorithm based on repetitive intravenous bolus injections of insulin and combined this with an intravascular blood glucose monitor. Four anesthetized pigs were used in the study. he animals developed a mildly diabetic state from streptozotocin pretreatment. hey were steadily brought within the blood glucose target range of 4.5–6.0 mmol/L in 21 to 121 min and kept within that range for 128 to 238 min (hypoglycemic values varied from 2.9 to 51.1 min). he study conirmed our hypotheses regarding the feasibility of this new principle for blood glucose control, and the algorithm was constantly improved during the study to produce the best results in the last animals. he main obstacles were the drit of the IvS-1 sensor and problems with the calibration procedure, which calls for an improvement in the sensor stability before this method can be applied fully in new studies in animals and humans. 1. Introduction he development of an artiicial endocrine pancreas (AEP), composed of a system of continuous blood glucose mon- itoring and automated insulin infusion, has been a long sought-ater solution in diabetic care [1]. he intravascular approach to both glucose sensing and insulin delivery was abandoned in the late 80s, so current research is focused on subcutaneous glucose measurements and subcutaneous insulin administration [2]. However, the performance of these systems are still less than satisfactory, even though there have been some recent advances [3–5]. We think it is