Insulin (medication) to develop an orally available insulin. Many of these approaches employ nanoparticle delivery systems and several are being tested in clinical trials. Another improvement would be a transplantation of the pancreas or beta cell to avoid periodic insulin administration. This would result in a self-regulating insulin source. Transplantation of an entire pancreas (as an individual organ) is difficult and relatively uncommon. It is often performed in conjunction with liver or kidney transplant, although it can be done by itself. It is also possible to do a transplantation of only the pancreatic beta cells. However, islet transplants had been highly experimental
Insulin analog with zinc in the blood, forming hexamers. Insulin in the form of a hexamer will not bind to its receptors, so the hexamer has to slowly equilibrate back into its monomers to be biologically useful. Hexameric insulin delivered subcutaneously is not readily available for the body when insulin is needed in larger doses, such as after a meal (although this is more a function of subcutaneously administered insulin, as intravenously dosed insulin is distributed rapidly to the cell receptors, and therefore, avoids this problem). Zinc combinations of insulin are used for slow release of basal insulin. Basal insulin support is