By the year 2040, the International Diabetes Federation estimates that 642 million people worldwide will have diabetes. 5 to 10 percent of these will be Type-1 diabetes sufferers; needing to inject insulin into their bodies every day to maintain healthy blood glucose levels. As the number of individuals diagnosed with diabetes increases, so too are increased rates of strokes, heart attacks, blindness - to name just a few.
It's becoming increasingly urgent therefore to find a solution to this global problem, and this is exactly what researchers around the world have been working on, in cooperation, to find an effective cure.
But what is there to cure? Meaning, what actually happens when you have diabetes? Not only that, how can researchers inject insulin producing cells (called Islets of Langerhans) into a diabetic patient without the body's immune system immediately destroying them?
It turns out that researchers are getting close to solving all of these problems, but the road ahead is still paved with complexity and, as you'll soon hear, cutting-edge polymers appear to be the holy grail within the world's reach. In this special feature, Gavin Shoebridge speaks to Dr Igor Lacík, head of the Polymer Research Institute within the Slovak Academy of Sciences, to find out what has been achieved, and what's still to be done in the race to end diabetes.
The battle against diabetes
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