In another instance of Indian American achievements in the field of cutting edge medical research, Dr. Tejal Desai, Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, was declared by ‘Popular Science’ magazine as one of the ten most brilliant scientists. (Earlier, Dr. Ram Sasisekharan, Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had hit the headlines for discovering a possible cure for cancer.)

The recognition was towards her work in building “nifty replacements” for “pancreas, blood vessels, or other organs on the fritz”. ‘If it don’t work, replace it’ is a sound maxim, whether for a machine or living being. Unfortunately in the case of the latter, it is far easier said than done.

Take for example the pancreas. One of the two main hormones it secretes (through its beta cells) is insulin, which stimulates the liver and various tissue cells to absorb excess glucose from the blood, and thus regulate available energy. Diabetes is caused when there is a lack of insulin. The only way to address this problem was by means of insulin injections, taken regularly, for life.

Till Dr. Tejal Desai came along. She tried to replace the dysfunctional beta cells with working ones taken from another body. The problem is this. Whenever such ‘foreign’ entities are introduced into the body, it rejects it—by viciously attacking it with antibodies and white blood cells (WBCs). So the question was how to keep out these well-meaning but destructive ‘defense forces’ without causing a collapse of the body’s defenses; while also allowing in oxygen and nutrients.

Desai took the pancreatic cells of a mouse with which she filled a 2mm by 2mm silicon capsule. The surface of the capsule had previously been perforated with millions of very small holes—each just seven nanometers (billionths of a meter) across. To do this, a technology called photolithography, used in the carving components onto computer chips, was adopted. The resulting holes were large enough to let oxygen and nutrients in, and the insulin out, while keeping the WBCs and antibodies at bay. The capsule was placed in the gut of a mouse and presto! No more injections.