Team:CSU CHINA
Sweet
Guard
Hi there! I’m a small insulin molecule.
It is my duty to eat as much glucose as I can wherever I go and maintain the steady, healthy glucose level of the world I’m living in, or in your word, the human body I am living in.
Normally I have coworkers by my side to finish the job as this “sweet guard” together.
However, if we unfortunately come across a type I diabetes patient, things will become different.'
Living inside a T1DM patient’s body means I don’t have enough coworkers along my side.
Our HR -- islet b cells can’t function well, makes it impossible for our company to recruit enough staffs to carry and eat up these glucose molecules.
Everyone has his or her own limit, so do I. As a tiny insulin molecule, I can’t eat up all the sugar by myself.
Soon after the flaring up of this disease, our company become so weak that other disasters like ketoacidosis come into scene.
To my relief, my friends from CSU_CHINA came to help us.
A special member has joined our company to help us.
This friend is an engineered cell that can sense both the concentration of blood glucose and the exposure of blue light,
Which also provided by people and devices outside this troubled body.
And secrete insulin molecules same as me to add members to our crew.
With these new members coming in, the job we should but we cannot done sufficiently are now not a problem anymore.
However, way too many workers can also be a problem for a normal company.
The over secretion of insulin can cause a negative effect such as hypoglycemia.
Luckily, we have an automatic mechanism of stopping the secretion of insulin.
Once the engineered cell has sensed the number of insulin has reached a certain level, it will stop recruiting members for our company until we need more friends again.
Want to know more about this story?
Click here to learn more about how this engineered cell come into being and what my friends from CSU_CHINA did to solve this bitter-sweet problem of type I diabetes!