Premier Control Society Honors Frank Doyle
Former ICB co-director Frank Doyle has been selected to receive the 2015 American Automatic Control Council (AACC) Control Engineering Practice Award for pioneering the enabling technology of automatic control for systems biology and biomedical devices, specifically the foundational accomplishments for development of the artificial pancreas.
Presented annually to an individual or team, the award honors significant contribution to the advancement of control practice, with a focus on achievement, usefulness and benefit to society.
Doyle, who assumed the deanship of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences on July 1, 2015, describes his achievements over the years as "deeply collaborative" and credits Professor Nicholas Peppas, a colleague from Purdue who first co-authored a paper on this work with Doyle in 1996.
“I am deeply flattered by this award, which is across all engineering disciplines, so it is a distinct honor for me as a chemical engineer to receive this recognition,” said Doyle.
The Doyle Group’s research and development of an artificial pancreas (AP) represents a significant, potentially life-altering application of process control for people with Type 1 diabetes. The technology involves components that take real-time measurements of blood glucose and deliver measured amounts of insulin in response as a way to prevent the wild and unhealthy swings in blood sugar that characterize diabetes.
