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taylorvich [soylentnews.org] writes:

https://newatlas.com/medical/diabetes-implant-oxygen-islet-cells/ [newatlas.com]

Daily insulin injections are painful and inconvenient, which is why scientists are developing implants that treat diabetes without any need for needles. A new one looks particularly promising, as it produces oxygen to feed onboard islet cells.
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One alternative to those injections involves implanting islet cells that have either been harvested from a cadaver or derived from stem cells. While doing so does work in many cases, patients have to take immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their lives in order to keep those cells from being rejected.

Scientists have tried encapsulating islet cells in tiny flexible implants that shield the cells from the host's immune system, yet still allow insulin produced by those cells to diffuse into the bloodstream. These implants also prevent life-sustaining oxygen from reaching the cells, however, which means those cells won't last long.

Some implants have addressed that shortcoming by incorporating either a preloaded oxygen chamber or chemical reagents which produce oxygen. Both the oxygen and the reagents run out over time, though, so the implants will have to be replaced or refilled.

Seeking a longer-term alternative, a team from MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital recently developed the new device.

It's packed with hundreds of thousands of islet cells, along with a proton-exchange membrane that splits water vapor (which occurs naturally in the body) into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen harmlessly diffuses, while the oxygen goes into a storage chamber in the implant. A thin, permeable membrane in that chamber then allows the oxygen to flow through to the chamber containing the islet cells.

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