By David Rice

RALEIGH – We recently learned that an insulin “patch” developed by a team from NC State University and UNC-Chapel Hill could transform life for millions of diabetics around the world. ¹

This dime-sized patch developed in the joint biomedical engineering department of the two schools also offers an excellent study in why state support for basic research makes very good sense.

A person with diabetes doesn’t produce enough insulin, the hormone that transfers glucose from the bloodstream to the body’s cells. Extended bouts of elevated blood sugar that result can lead to heart disease, kidney failure, blindness and limb amputations, among other problems.

The number of people affected is staggering: There are 382 million diabetics worldwide and 29 million in the United States, according to the American Diabetes Association. Currently, millions of diabetics must prick their fingers multiple times a day to check their blood sugar, then calculate the right amount of insulin to inject using either a syringe or an insulin pump. It’s imperfect treatment at best.

The patch would use “microneedles” that painlessly penetrate the skin; the needles would measure glucose levels and dispense an appropriate dose of insulin to lower blood sugar to normal levels. By removing much of the guesswork, the patch could potentially improve patient outcomes and reduce the considerable collateral damage the disease causes.

Though it still needs to be tested on pigs before it can be tried with humans, the patch is one of several methods of nano-delivery of insulin being researched by Dr. Zhen Gu, a remarkable 34-year-old scientist whose grandmother in China died of complications from diabetes.²

Through the budgets of NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill, North Carolina taxpayers put about $1 million into start-up costs for Gu’s research, including his salary, his team of graduate students and the lab space he uses on NC State’s Centennial Campus.³

Gu’s work quickly attracted the attention of the American Diabetes Association, which has made more than $2 million in grants to support his innovative research.⁴ More grants are potentially on the way.

Gu is researching treatment and not a cure, and years of testing are still needed.

But a modest state investment has already leveraged at least $2 million in private support and produced treatments that could alter life for as many as 780,000 North Carolinians – and millions more around the world.

Patients are obviously the first and foremost beneficiaries. But this sort of research makes profound economic sense as well. State support for basic research has helped make North Carolina – and particularly the Research Triangle – a world leader in research on cancer, AIDS and other conditions.

In May, UNC-Chapel Hill and GlaxoSmithKline announced a partnership in which GSK will invest $20 million over five years with the ambitious – but leaders say achievable – goal of finding a cure for AIDS. Since 2011, UNC has led an 11-university consortium on AIDS eradication in which the National Institutes of Health have invested $40 million.⁵

And this week Dr. Myron Cohen, chief of UNC’s Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, announced a landmark finding that a potent cocktail of drugs can prevent the spread of HIV through sexual activity.⁶

In 2007 – the year cancer became the leading cause of death in North Carolina – the state made a unique commitment of $50 million a year to the University Cancer Research Fund, a concerted effort through the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at UNC-Chapel Hill to attack a disease that afflicts one in three of us at some point in our lives.

The University Cancer Research Fund reported a return on investment of more than 5-to-1, creating $265 million in economic impact and 1,900 new jobs in 2012-13 alone.⁷

Yet legislators inexplicably cut support for cancer research by $8 million in 2013.⁸

Now is no time to back off such commitments. In fact, it’s a great time to step them up. It makes good sense for the advancement of science, for North Carolina’s economy – and most of all for the patients to whom it gives hope.

David Rice is the Executive Director of Higher Education Works. He is also a member of the American Diabetes Association’s Community Leadership Board for Eastern North Carolina.

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¹ http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article25179547.html
² http://www.highereducationworks.org/2014/10/joint-nc-state-unc-research-could-revolutionize-diabetes-treatment/
³ N.C. State University Office of University Communications, July 17, 2015.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article20646498.html
⁶ http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/health-care/article27928615.html
⁷ https://unclineberger.org/ucrf/ucrf-annual-reports/fy-2013-ucrf-annual-report-to-the-nc-general-assembly
⁸ http://www.ncleg.net/sessions/2013/budget/2013/S402-CCSLEx-4.pdf, p. 12.