Georgetown University Women’s Center launches Squash Diabetes campaign

Dec 13 2012

The Squash Diabetes Campaign was launched today by the Georgetown University Women's Squash Team, where a team member successfully competes in the vigorous game of squash despite the health challenges of Type 1 (Juvenile) diabetes. Campaign proceeds support advocacy and human trials to cure diabetes through the new breakthroughs in bio-artificial pancreas technology.

Team Captain Carolyn Meister said, "Last year, we had a wake-up call when Lucy joined us as a freshman with Type 1 diabetes. It is a deadly dangerous disease and growing in epidemic numbers. This year, we decided we can't ignore T1D and we want to do something about it -- so we've launched Squash Diabetes!"

New Generation Foundation is the non-profit platform that supports the Squash Diabetes Campaign.

Georgetown Squash Coach Coach Adam Pistel said: "Given the conditioning requirements of collegiate squash and the metabolism challenges of diabetes, it is almost inconceivable that a Type 1 diabetic could play this game. But we've been proven wrong. A Type 1 diabetic, with determination and proper controls, can live a normal life. That said, there is nothing normal about this devastating disease. We need to find a cure and we believe one is at hand."

New Bio-Artificial "Encapsulife" Pancreas -- Points To A Cure for Diabetes

Recent break-through developments in bio-artificial pancreas technology -- and successful animal trials in dogs and chimpanzees -- hold the promise of automatically reversing diabetes without harmful immunosuppression drugs.

A living-cell bio-artificial pancreas is comprised of encapsulated islet cells, organized into a "patch" and, when implanted under the skin, produces insulin in response to glucose in the blood stream. The most successful progress in this arena is based on NASA-derived technology discovered and advanced by physicist-astronaut Dr. Taylor Wang at the Vanderbilt University and more recently in collaboration with Harvard Medical School.

SOURCE New Generation Foundation