Who'll Be the First to Meld With the Machines? Diabetics

Tia Geri is the shortest player on her club soccer team. Geri, who turned 17 last month, has been playing with the same group of girls for almost as long as she's been living with type 1 diabetes. And while she's not the only one on the team with the disease, she is the only one with an artificial pancreas--a computer system that can control her insulin levels without her telling it to. A sensor on her abdomen monitors the glucose in her blood, and a pump adds the insulin her body needs to turn that sugar into energy. Geri is one of the first people in the country to get the MiniMed 670G, the first bionic pancreas to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.