Current Development Status and Perspectives of Self‐Regulated Insulin Delivery Systems: A Review

SUMMARY Diabetes is not an infectious disease but its increasingly rapid and worldwide spread has been recognized as “pandemic”. Despite the necessity for continuous and accurate glycemic control in the management of insulin‐dependent diabetes mellitus, the current palliative treatment relies almost solely on patient self‐injection of insulin, which not only impinges on the QOL of patients but also fails to precisely control the dose of insulin, where an overdose must be strictly avoided since it can otherwise cause serious hypoglycemia. The development of self‐regulated insulin delivery systems is a long‐standing challenge for materials science, for which the exploitation of glucose oxidase and sugar‐binding lectin are two prevalent strategies to achieve the function of glucose sensitivity. These protein‐based components, however, are inappropriate for long‐term use and storage due to their denaturing and cytotoxic natures, and they are hardly suitable for any implantable applications. Thus, they have not yet been put in clinical use to date. This review intends to provide an overview of the current efforts to develop a thoroughly synthetic alternative making use of a phenylboronic acid–derived polyacrylamide gel.