New Islet on a Chip Designed for Scalable Manufacturing

Harvard scientists designed and built a microfluidic-based Islet on a Chip. According to the team, the new device makes it easier for scientists to screen insulin-producing cells before transplanting them into a patient, test insulin-stimulating compounds, and study the fundamental biology of diabetes.

"If we want to cure diabetes, we have to restore a person's own ability to make and deliver insulin," explained Douglas Melton, one of the authors on a paper published today in Lab on a Chip. "Beta cells, which are made in the pancreas, have the job of measuring sugar and secreting insulin, and normally they do this very well. But in diabetes patients these cells can't function properly. Now, we can use stem cells to make healthy beta cells for them. But like all transplants, there is a lot involved in making sure that can work safely."

Before transplanting beta cells into a patient, they must be tested to see whether they are functioning properly. The current method for doing this is based on technology from the 1970s: giving the cells glucose to elicit an insulin response, collecting samples, adding reagents, and taking measurements to see how much insulin is present in each one. The manual process takes so long to run and interpret that many clinicians give up on it altogether.

The new, automated, miniature device gives results in real time, which can speed up clinical decision making.

"Our device arranges islets into separate lines, delivers a pulse of glucose to each one simultaneously, and detects how much insulin is produced," said Aaron Glieberman, co-first author on the paper. "It couples glucose stimulation and insulin detection in the same flow path, so it can give a clinician actionable information, quickly. The design also uses materials that are amenable to larger-scale manufacturing, which means more people will be able to use it."