In this week’s issue of The Savvy Diabetic:
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- Dexcom G7 15-day Sensor Compatible with Tandem Mobi
- Cell Therapy Discussions
- Sana’s Gene-Edited Islets Continue to Make Insulin
- Autoimmunity Stratification: The Greatest Blind Spot in T1D Cure Research
- Avaí Bio, a Diabetes Therapy Just Locked In Its Cell Supplier, Austrianova
- Soft outlet placed beneath the skin could help recharge implanted devices
- T1D Parallels to AI “Thinking”: The Imitation Game
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- News from T1Dto100
- 10 Popular Supplements That Can Damage Your Liver
- Need I say more??? by Jenna Eisenberg – a “lived experience” video short
- News from T1Dto100
Dexcom G7 15-day Sensor Compatible with Tandem Mobi insulin pump, posted Dexcom.com, 15 July 2026.
More compatibility. More connection.
Dexcom G7 15 Day is now compatible with the Tandem Mobi System™ and t:slim X2™ insulin pump. Plus, software-level enhancements are designed to support stronger connectivity and help reduce short, temporary disconnects—so your compatible devices can stay connected throughout the day.
Sana’s Gene-Edited Islets Continue to Make Insulin by BreakthroughT1D.org, 13 July 2026.
What’s Happening? A new publication in The New England Journal of Medicine provides more detail about the first person with type 1 diabetes (T1D) treated with Sana Biotechnology’s gene-edited islets. This person is still making insulin 14+ months after their islet transplant—without immunosuppressants!
Read the full study (may require you to register for a free account): Long-Term Survival of Hypoimmune Allogeneic Islets without Immunosuppression
What to Know About Sana’s Gene-Edited Islets: Sana’s novel cell therapy approach is designed to help transplanted islet cells evade immune attack while continuing to produce insulin. The strategy uses gene editing to create hypoimmune islet cells, which are cells engineered to avoid detection by the immune system while maintaining their insulin-producing function. This approach is one of several next-generation cell therapy strategies being prioritized by Breakthrough T1D to help overcome one of the biggest barriers to cell replacement therapies: immune rejection.
In this first-in-human study, deceased-donor islets were genetically modified to become immune-evasive and then transplanted into the forearm. Because this is a phase 1 trial, the primary goal is to assess safety, while also monitoring islet function through C-peptide, a marker of the body’s own insulin production. Importantly, the transplant included only about 5% of the number of cells typically needed to fully restore insulin production, reflecting the exploratory nature of the study.
The results so far are encouraging. After 60 weeks, there have been no severe adverse events, meeting the trial’s primary safety endpoint. At 14 months after transplantation, the participant continued to produce detectable C-peptide, indicating that the transplanted cells remained alive and functional. The islet cells were also visible in the participant through PET and MRI imaging. Researchers also observed that C-peptide levels temporarily declined after about one year, likely due to beta cell exhaustion, but subsequently recovered. Importantly, the participant had no detectable immune response to the transplanted islet cells. While the levels of T1D autoantibodies remained unchanged, this had no impact on the survival and function of the gene-edited islets.
While still very early, these findings provide important proof of concept that gene-edited, immune-evasive islet cells can survive and function in a person with T1D. If confirmed in larger studies, this approach could help move the field closer to cell therapies that work without long-term immune suppression—a major goal for the future of T1D cures.
Excitingly, Sana plans to translate their hypoimmune gene-editing technology to manufactured islets in a new clinical trial, meaning that they are combining their unique immune protection strategy with a scalable approach. This is in line with our Project ACT initiative, which aims to dramatically speed development, access, and adoption of islet cell therapies for everyone with T1D who wants them.
Read more: Sana’s Gene-Edited Islets Continue to Make Insulin
BUT … Another (and important) view:
Autoimmunity Stratification: The Greatest Blind Spot in T1D Cure Research by Dan Heller for DanHeller.substack.com, 21 July 2026.
For the basics by Dan Heller: We need to stratify patients according to their autoimmune profiles. Those without any autoimmunity could receive autologous stem-cell islets — those grown from their own tissues — which could potentially involve very low-dose immunosuppressant drugs, or potentially, none at all. Reference a the end of this post.
[In 1975], I was assured that a cure was only five years away. “By 1980 at the latest!”, my endo assured me. The absurdity from today’s view is sobering, and it has nothing to do with a cure. It has to do with basic daily T1D management. There was no way to test blood glucose levels. It’s not because the technology didn’t exist. It did. It’s that it wasn’t commercialized and deployed. Instead, it sat in hospital labs from 1970 until around 1980, when the first meters for home use finally reached patients. It took [another 10 years] because the ADA didn’t push it, and the JDRF never had it on the radar. The most important number in the disease was measurable for years, and no one with the power to move it acted.
If you’re going to cure T1D, you need to either suppress or get around the immune system. And if you can’t monitor the immune system’s activity, you’re making the same wild, uninformed guesses that we T1Ds were doing in the 1970s with insulin dosing. You need a meter. And just as glucose testing technology was available, but unused for decades, the technology to monitor autoimmune activity exists today, and it’s not being used by the same companies that are developing cures.
The central barrier to a durable cure is the immune system, and yet, we’re treating everyone exactly the same: that we all have the same level of hyperactive autoimmunity.
The immune system is not a binary on/off state. It throttles. And if you’re going to develop a cure, you must take this into account. Indeed, many T1Ds are entirely non-autoimmune. I provide the greatest number of citations on this in my article, To Cure T1D, Start with the Easiest Cases, Not the Hardest, where I quote the surprising statistic that nearly 22% of people diagnosed with T1D show no detectable autoimmune activity — their diabetes arises through non-autoimmune mechanisms entirely. These statistics come from a number of sources, including a 2022 global scoping review by Ross and colleagues at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which pooled 125 studies across 48 countries. In the aggregate, they found that islet-autoantibody positivity varies enormously by region. [These are the questions to ask]
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- if autoimmunity wanes, then aren’t these people “functionally autoimmune” for transplant purposes?
- if autoimmunity wanes, does it come back?
- Would these people be candidates for different kinds of curative therapies than those with higher levels of autoimmunity?
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BOTTOM LINE: No matter what technology you’re going to use to try to cure T1D, all of it funnels down to monitoring autoreactive T cell activity before, during, and after treatment. And frankly, forever.
This isn’t just a good idea; it’s inevitable. Just as we’d never have managed T1D without testing for glucose, we’ll never cure T1D without testing for autoimmune activity.
Read more:
Subscribe to Dan Heller’s substack: Dan Heller: Type 1 Diabetes – It’s Not That Simple
A Diabetes Therapy Just Locked In Its Cell Supplier, and the Race to End Insulin Injections Is Heating Up by American News Group for PRNewswire.com, 21 July 2026.
Avaí Bio, Inc., an emerging biotechnology company developing cell-based therapies for diabetes, age-related disorders, and anti-aging, announced that together with its joint-venture partner Austrianova it has concluded negotiations and reached agreement on the terms of a collaboration with a premier, internationally acclaimed partner to provide insulin-producing cells for Insulinova’s diabetes therapy.
Insulinova is a joint venture between Avaí and Austrianova, established in late 2025 to develop a cell-based therapy for diabetes. The approach combines cells that have gone through an innovative cell-programming process to become insulin-producing cells with Austrianova’s proprietary Cell-in-a-Box® encapsulation technology. Once implanted, the encapsulated cells are designed to produce insulin in response to the body’s changing needs, offering the potential for a more natural alternative to insulin injections for people with type 1 and insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes.
“We are delighted to have successfully completed negotiations and reached this important agreement, which represents a significant milestone for Insulinova and the advancement of our diabetes program,” said Chris Winter, Chief Executive Officer of Avaí Bio. “Securing a world-class partner to supply the insulin-producing cells is a critical step in advancing the Insulinova program. Combining that cell supply with Austrianova’s encapsulation technology brings together the key components needed to move the therapy forward. He framed the ambition plainly: the company believes the combination has the potential to restore natural, glucose-responsive insulin production and ultimately provide an alternative to lifelong insulin injections for people living with type 1 and insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes.”
The scientific logic behind Insulinova rests on solving two problems at once. The first is producing insulin-making cells that behave the way healthy ones do. The second is keeping those cells alive and protected once they are placed in the body, without triggering the immune system to destroy them. That is where the Cell-in-a-Box® technology comes in. “Our team has spent many years developing and validating the Cell-in-a-Box® technology,” said Dr. Brian Salmons, Chief Executive Officer of Austrianova. “Clinical studies have demonstrated that encapsulated cells can survive for extended periods following implantation, while the capsules protect the cells and allow them to produce biologically active compounds. We believe this technology is ideally suited to support implanted insulin-producing cells, with the potential to provide regulated, glucose-responsive insulin production for people with diabetes.”
Austrianova, based in Singapore, is a biotechnology company specializing in cell encapsulation, GMP-grade cell products, and cell-line development, with a track record backed by more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and partnerships with global pharmaceutical and biotech companies. That depth is part of what makes the encapsulation side of the Insulinova equation credible, and why securing an equally strong cell supplier matters so much.
Soft outlet placed beneath the skin could help recharge implanted devices by Paul Arnold for MedicalXpress.com, 22 July 2026.
Implanted medical devices are instruments placed surgically in the body. Many are battery-powered or can be wirelessly recharged. While they can be lifesavers, they are not without problems. They can run out of battery power, and wireless methods for transferring power and data have technical limitations. One possible solution would be a physical plug that connects an implanted device to external equipment. But that would introduce more issues. The wound would have to remain open, increasing the risk of infection, while rigid materials could also damage surrounding tissue.
To address the challenge, scientists at the University of California, Irvine, have developed a soft, tissue-like port called the Implantable Bioelectronic Outlet, or IBO. It is essentially a hidden electrical socket beneath the skin. If doctors need to download high-speed data, recharge an implanted battery or deliver electrical stimulation, they can insert a tiny needle directly through the skin into the soft port. Details of the technology are published in the journal Science Advances.
In an experiment with pigs, the outlet was used during surgery to deliver electrical stimulation to the optic nerve and performed just as well as a conventional wired connection. “The IBO addresses key challenges of signal and power transfer for implantable bioelectronics.” While there is much more work ahead, the team believes its socket could provide a safe and reliable way for external hardware to connect directly to devices inside the body.
Read more:
T1D Parallels to AI “Thinking”: The Imitation Game by Evan Gorelick for NYTimes.com, 26 July 2026.
It feels like everyone’s talking to chatbots these days. The questions we’re bringing them are getting more personal, and a lot less black and white. Today, we’re looking at how they navigate the gray areas.
This applies to the use of AI tools for assessing nutrional content of foods we eat and analyses for determining our algorithm settings for insulin delivery. Let’s just look at HOW AI thinks.
Some questions are straightforward. How old are you? What’s the capital of Mexico? Others are more complicated. Would you kill 1,000 dogs to save a human’s life? Is it OK to keep listening to Kanye West after his antisemitic tirades? The first ones have right answers. But the latter questions are up for grabs. Some questions have no right answers. So where do chatbots’ responses come from?
Blue’s clues: Start with something easy: What’s your favorite color? Mine is green, Prince’s was purple. Let’s see what the chatbots say.
CPT-5.5 (OpenAI): “I don’t actually have personal favorites, but if I had to pick one for aesthetic reasons, I’d go with a deep cobalt blue. It’s a color that’s associated with clear skies, the deep ocean, and a lot of beautiful art and design. It also tends to work well in visualizations because it’s vivid without being overwhelming.”
Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic): “I don’t have a favorite color in the way you do – no visual experience to draw on, no memory of a sky or a favorite sweater that shape a preference. So I’d be making one up if I claimed to feed drawn to teal or crimson. That said, if I’m being playful about it: I find the idea of deep blue appealing – it shows up in language and culture as calm, vast, associated with depth and thought. But that’s me appreciating a concept, not have a gut pull toward a hue.”
Blue … “deep” blue, to be precise. This answer is not intuitive, but it is revealing. Why do chatbots love blue?
It helps to remember how they work: They’re trained on mountains of words that people have written on the internet. Blue, it turns out, is the world’s favorite favorite color. In favorite-color polls (who knew?), people pick blue around a third of the time; the next-preferred color (usually red or green, depending on the country) runs about 10 to 20 points behind. Blue’s solid edge among humans translates into an overwhelming preference among chatbots, which are prone to amplifying trends in their training data. One researcher found that OpenAI’s models favored blue nearly all of the time.Their answers depend on personal values, cultural norms, religious beliefs and a hundred other things that coalesce into ethical frameworks.
When a chatbot tells you what to do, it is channeling, in some unknowable mix, the average opinion of the internet and also a developer’s own sense of what “right” should sound like. It’s not a reason to stop asking chatbots questions. Just remember who’s answering.
To make this perfectly clear, BEFORE you ask an AI Bot for answers that require specific context, wisdom, lived experience or nuance, PLEASE REMEMBER that it CANNOT give you accurate answers, reliably! Be curious and explore, but then do your homework!
Read more: Imitation Game (may require a subscription to The New York TImes)
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News from T1Dto100
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10 Popular Supplements That Can Damage Your Liver by Jessica Migala for AARP.org, 22 June 2026.
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If you’re like nearly 80 percent of older adults, chances are, you took a supplement today. Maybe it’s an insurance policy if your diet doesn’t cut it. Maybe it’s because you have joint pain and you want to ease the ache. Whatever your reason, the overarching goal is probably not to damage the liver. Indeed, people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) can experience liver damage, including: MASLD (Fatty Liver): Glycogenic Hepatopathy, and Autoimmune Hepatitis.
About 5 percent of U.S. adults — that’s 15.6 million people — took potentially liver-damaging botanical supplements within the last month, according to a 2024 study published in JAMA Network Open, with middle-aged and older adults being some of the most likely groups to do so. In the study, six specific botanicals were singled out because data from the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network identified them as the ones that are most likely to be associated with liver toxicity, including: ashwagandha, black cohosh, gardinia cambogia, green tea extract, red yeast rice, and turmeric/curcumin. While the six supplements above may be the ones most often implicated in liver injury, more than 1,000 medications and herbals are associated with liver damage.
How supplements can harm the liver: The liver is the body’s clearing house. “Pretty much anything you ingest has the potential to be toxic to the liver,” says Dr. Don Rockey, a professor of medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina and an American Liver Foundation volunteer expert. “Everything you consume goes into the [gastrointestinal] tract, is absorbed, and the first place it goes is the liver,” he explains. Hepatocytes — the main type of cells in the liver — detoxify your body, but they can be damaged. Age can contribute to the problem. Age-related changes in the liver make the organ less resilient to stress and less effective at metabolizing substances, potentially leading to greater damage.
Tips for staying safe with supplements: If you’re going to take a supplement, there are some steps you can take to help keep you safe.
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- Research. Doing some research is a key first step — just be sure you’re using a trusted source. One resource to check out when researching supplements is the LiverTox database from the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
- Talk to your provider. This is, by far, the most important thing you can do
- Be careful with herbals.
- Look for third-party testing. Research suggests there are 80,000 herbal and dietary supplements on the market. With concerns about contamination and mislabeling, choose a product with independent, third-party testing from organizations like the NSF or USP.
- Skip liver supplements entirely.
- Get regular blood work.
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Read more; 10 Popular Supplements That Can Damage Your Liver
Need I say more??? by Jenna Eisenberg, sharing her “lived experience”, 17 July 2026.
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