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Researchers at the University of Virginia and sites across the globe are testing a computerized, subcutaneous system that could one day transform the way Type 1 diabetics manage their disease. UVA investigators have completed the first of several international artificial pancreas clinical trials to test an individually-"prescribed" control algorithm, which regulates blood glucose levels in Type 1 diabetics.

Christopher Bailey used to be a boxer. He was scrappy, he says, but he was strong. He says he beat up guys twice his size. "Look at my face, no cuts or scars. My ears and eyes aren't messed up like some other fighters," he says. "I was careful. I learned everything I needed to know about each guy I went up against, and changed up my fighting to beat him." In 1993, he faced another new opponent diabetes.

With diabetes a national epidemic and the prevalence of the disease as high as 18 percent in the South Bronx, a unique physician "pay-for-performance" program at Montefiore Medical Center has reduced blood sugar and cholesterol levels significantly among many of this borough's diabetes population.

In the last two years a team at the University of Chicago Medical Center has been able to wean more than 30 children who appeared to have type-1 diabetes off of insulin. This is not a miracle cure but a clever application of modern genetics and the tweaking of ion channels. All these children suffered from permanent neonatal diabetes. They had a genetic mutation that, by altering the function of a potassium channel involved in glucose sensing, mimics insulin-dependent diabetes.