Needle sticks, test strips, glucose tablets, and endless calculations. Living with type 1 diabetes can be exhausting. But soon, technology could take care of it all. Researchers are testing an artificial pancreas in 23 patients in Italy, France and the U.S. Some say the technology may revolutionize the way patients manage their disease.

New mom Brandis Roman spends much of her time taking care of baby Delaney.

Pricking her finger to monitor her type 1 diabetes is an unwelcome part of her day.

"Everything that I do, I have to think about how it's going to impact my blood sugar," said Roman, who has type 1 diabetes.

She wears a sensor that measures her blood sugar and a pump that dispenses insulin, but it's up to her to make the right calculations.

"Especially now being a new mom, my time to think about my diabetes management is way less," Roman said.

Soon Roman may not have to think much about her diabetes at all thanks to what researchers are calling an artificial pancreas.

"It combines two existing devices, the insulin pump and the continuous glucose monitor, and puts essentially a brain between them," said Boris Kovatchev, professor of systems and information engineering at the University of Virginia.

That "brain" is an algorithm. It works like a real pancreas. Patients wear a glucose sensor that measures their blood sugars. The readings are sent to a computer, which calculates how much insulin the patient needs. It then sends that information directly to the pump, which delivers the insulin. The patient doesn't have to do a thing.

"So the algorithm has to be way smarter than the normal pancreas," Kovatchev said.

It adjusts for how much each patient eats and sleeps. In a study, those who wore it were five times less likely to have a low blood sugar episode overnight.

Roman wore the artificial pancreas in the pilot study.

"I could just hang out and read a book and watch TV and not have to think about how many carbs were in the food I was eating," Roman said.

She is worrying less about her diabetes and focusing more on her baby girl.

The hope is to make the computer smaller – maybe even the size of a cell phone – and combine all the devices into one. A new study testing the artificial pancreas in kids ages 12 to 18 is set to begin this month.

BACKGROUND: Diabetes is a disease that causes the body to not produce or properly use insulin, a hormone necessary to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy. According to the American Diabetes Associate, 23.6 million children and adults in the United States suffer from the condition -- or 7.8 percent of the population. If diabetes isn't managed properly, long-term complications can result including neuropathy, blindness, kidney failure and amputations.

MANAGING DIABETES: Most patients with diabetes live a life of never-ending calculations, testing blood sugar several times a day, counting carbohydrates and adjusting how much insulin to take. "That's the major burden of type 1 diabetes, that people have to think about that at all times, measure frequently -- as frequently as they can with the available technology -- and make insulin adjustments all the time," Kovatchev said. New technology like continuous blood glucose monitors, which monitor blood sugar levels in the body, and insulin pumps, which dispense insulin without the need for injections, have made management of the disease easier.

AN ARTIFICIAL PANCREAS? Researchers at the University of Virginia and abroad are testing a computerized system called the "artificial pancreas" that continuously regulates a diabetic patient's blood glucose. The system is composed of an insulin pump and a continuous blood glucose monitor. A computer uses an algorithm to do the calculations necessary to deliver the appropriate amount of insulin.

Researchers have successfully tested the artificial pancreas on 23 patients. In clinical trials, patients underwent two 24-hour admissions, one in which they controlled their own blood sugar levels in physician-supervised sessions, and one in which they relied on the artificial pancreas system. Patients had identical eating sleeping and activity patterns during both hospital stays. Results show when patients controlled their own blood sugar, 23 episodes of low blood sugar occurred; when patients used the artificial pancreas, five such episodes took place. "The primary outcome of the study was five-fold reduction of low blood glucoses -- or nocturnal hypoglycemia -- and the secondary outcome was increased overall glucose control within the target range that was set in the study," Kovatchev said.

The algorithm used by the artificial pancreas -- which allows for personalized treatment for each diabetes patient -- was co-developed by researchers in Virginia and Italy. A large, multi-center clinical trial of the artificial pancreas involving kids ages 12 to 18 is set to begin in January.