July 16, 2019
Insulin, a medication used to treat diabetes, is temperature-sensitive and has a short shelf life. It can be stored unopened for up to a year, but once opened, it must be used within weeks or even days. Because insulin is composed of proteins suspended in a water-based solution that facilitates its delivery and preservation, if it isn’t refrigerated or used shortly after opening, those proteins can break down and become ineffective.
While many Americans may not consider insulin storage requirements much of a problem, diabetics who lack resources could be at high risk. According to the community health organization Partners in Health, about one out of three members of the Navajo Nation suffers from diabetes or prediabetes, and many of them live in rural areas where they may not have electricity or easy access to health care resources such as pharmacies.
To address the problem of insulin’s temperature sensitivity, Gerrick Lindberg, assistant professor of physical chemistry in NAU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, will use a $60,000 National Institutes of Health grant awarded through the Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative to study whether ionic liquids or deep eutectic solvents could be substituted for a water solution to preserve and deliver insulin.
Click to read more on the NAU News website.
Source: NAU News Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute On Minority Health And Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number U54MD012388. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.