Kinetic modelling of blood glucose variation in a bioartificial pancreas

Methods are presented for assessing the performance of biomaterials for a bioartificial pancreas using a kinetic model of blood glucose variation. The model is composed of simultaneous differential equations that simulate variation of blood glucose concentration of rats outside the biomaterial and decrease of islet number inside the biomaterial. The resulting calculations agree well with the in vivo experimental data and indicate that the characteristics of bioartificial pancreas can be expressed as the actually working number of islets from the viewpoint of rats, regardless of the functioning of the bioartificial pancreas. The contributions of the capability of a biomaterial permeable to insulin and against immune rejection, and other factors that may induce cell death were involved in the actually working number of islets, i.e., the model used a lumped-parameter expression for assessment of the performance of biomaterials for a bioartificial pancreas. This model would be useful as a research tool for analysis of clinical investigation of bioartificial pancreas and physiological significance of blood glucose variation dynamics.