The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and JDRF have announced a $6 million collaborative grant agreement in support of an automated insulin delivery application.

The grant to Tidepool, a California-based nonprofit software organization, will provide funds for the development of Tidepool Loop, a hybrid, closed-loop, automated insulin delivery application for the iOS App Store as an FDA-regulated mobile application. Among other things, the grant will fund an expansion of Tidepool's software development effort and customer support operation for the app, which is intended to work with multiple insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring devices.

People with Type 1 diabetes have to monitor their blood glucose levels regularly and are dependent on injected or pumped insulin to survive. Automated insulin delivery systems monitor blood-glucose levels and use an algorithm that determines the correct amount of insulin to deliver at the right time, helping keep people with diabetes within a normal blood-glucose range.

"Loop is one of the greatest things out there right now," said Helmsley Trust trustee David Panzirer. "My daughter has been on [DIY] Loop for nearly two years. There have definitely been improvements in her clinical care, but the real story is the improvement in her quality of life. My daughter tells me that she doesn’t need to think about her diabetes as much as she used to."