People with Type 1 diabetes walk an endless tightrope daily, monitoring their blood glucose levels and manually taking insulin by injection or from a pump. Not any more.

Researchers from Boston University and Massachusetts General Hospital in the US have developed a bionic pancreas that could help patients keep blood glucose levels consistent throughout the day.

People with Type 1 diabetes who used a bionic pancreas instead of manually monitoring glucose in the study were more likely to have blood glucose levels consistently within the normal range, with fewer dangerous lows or highs, researchers noted.

"The bionic pancreas system reduced the average blood glucose to levels that have been shown to dramatically reduce the risk of diabetic complications," said Steven Russell, an assistant professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

During the study, researchers found about 37 percent fewer interventions for low blood glucose (hypoglycemia) and a more than two-fold reduction in the time in hypoglycemia in adults using the bionic pancreas than with the manual pump.

For adolescents using the bionic pancreas, results showed more than a two-fold reduction in the need for interventions for hypoglycemia.

The bionic pancreas around the size of an i-Pod is attached to patients' clothing with a small monitor.

The device uses a removable tiny sensor located in a thin needle inserted under the skin that automatically monitors real time glucose levels.

When the blood sugar level drops, it administers a dose of insulin.

"A bionic pancreas would function more like an automated thermostat, automatically monitoring blood glucose and delivering insulin or glucagon when needed to keep glucose within the normal range," Russell informed.

The study was published online in the journal New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers at the University of Toronto, including one of Indian-origin, have now discovered a complex network of proteins that could help in the treatment of neurological disorders such as epilepsy, autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.

"Our study pertains to the discovery of the ying-yang for neuronal cross-talk that is essential for normal healthy brain function," Chennai born Vivek Mahadevan, a Ph.D student at the University of Toronto in Canada, was quoted as saying to IANS.

Neurons in the brain communicate with other neurons through synapses, communication that can either excite or inhibit other neuron.

According to lead investigator of the study, professor Melanie Woodin, "an imbalance among the levels of excitation and inhibition - a tip towards excitation, for example, causes improper brain function and can produce seizures."

"We identified a key complex of proteins that can regulate excitation-inhibition balance at the cellular level," Woodin added.

This complex brings together three key proteins - KCC2, Neto2 and GluK2 - required for inhibitory and excitatory synaptic communication.

KCC2 is required for inhibitory impulses, GluK2 is a receptor for the main excitatory transmitter glutamate, and Neto2 is an auxiliary protein that interacts with both KCC2 and GluK2.

The discovery of the complex of three proteins is path breaking as it was previously believed that KCC2 and GluK2 were in separate compartments of the cell and acted independently of each other.

"Finding that they are all directly interacting and can co-regulate each other's function reveals for the first time a system that can mediate excitation-inhibition balance among neurons themselves," Mahadevan added.

As there is no cure for epilepsy and the treatments which are available can only curb its effects such as convulsions and seizures, the main focus should be on its prevention.

Mahadevan, along with other biologists carried out the study on mice brain via biochemistry, fluorescence imaging and electrophysiology experiments.

The findings appeared in the journal Cell Reports.

A new study suggests that improving the overall quality of one's diet helps to prevent type 2 diabetes.

The study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, found that those who improved their diet quality index scores by 10 percent over four years - by eating more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and less sweetened beverages and saturated fats, for example - reduced their risk for type 2 diabetes by about 20 percent, compared to those who made no changes to their diets. Dietary quality was measured using the 110-point Alternate Healthy Eating Index 2010.

The study also examined whether improved diet was a marker of other lifestyle changes, such as weight loss or increased physical activity, or if it could independently reduce a person's risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

"We found that diet was indeed associated with diabetes independent of weight loss and increased physical activity," lead researcher Sylvia Ley, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health said.

"If you improve other lifestyle factors you reduce your risk for type 2 diabetes even more, but improving diet quality alone has significant benefits. This is important because it is often difficult for people to maintain a calorie-restricted diet for a long time. We want them to know if they can improve the overall quality of what they eat - consume less red meat and sugar-sweetened beverages, and more fruits, vegetables and whole grains - they are going to improve their health and reduce their risk for diabetes," she said.

The study also showed that it didn't matter how good or poor a person's diet was when they started out, she said.

The study was presented at the American Diabetes Association's 74th Scientific Sessions.

Researchers have defined a previously unrecognized genetic cause for two types of birth defects found in newborn boys.

Lead author Dr. Dolores Lamb, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at Baylor, professor and vice chair for research of urology and molecular and cellular biology at Baylor, asid cryptorchidism and hypospadias are among the most common birth defects but the causes are usually unknown.

Cryptorchidism is characterized by the failure of descent of one or both testes into the scrotum during fetal development. In the adult man, the testes produce sperm and the male hormone, testosterone. Hypospadias is the abnormal placement of the opening of the urethra on the penis.

Both birth defects are usually surgically repaired during infancy.

Lamb and colleagues used a method of genome wide screening (essentially a molecular karyotype) called array comparative genomic hybridization to study children with these defects. The method looks specifically at changes in chromosomal regions that have undergone duplication or deletions too small to see under a microscope, termed copy number variations.

These genomic changes can alter gene dosage (gene gains or losses) resulting in a change in cell function.

In its analysis, the team showed that the cause of these birth defects in a subset of children with these defects of testis and penile development resulted from a change in the number of copies of a gene, VAMP7.

The role of VAMP7 gene duplication in causing these male birth defects was important because of the type of protein family it belongs to - it is a SNARE (Soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor activating protein receptor) protein (a large protein superfamily consisting of more than 60 members in yeast and mammalian cell), Lamb said.

The report has been published in the journal Nature Medicine.