Keynote Speakers

Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D) is a chronic metabolic disease affecting more than 9 million people worldwide. Due to the autoimmune destruction of pancreatic β- cells, individuals with T1D are fully dependent on lifelong insulin replacement therapy and must solve a complex control problem daily: administering insulin to regulate blood glucose levels while compensating for disturbances caused by meals and physical activity.
Over the past decade, diabetes therapy has been transformed by automated insulin delivery (AID) systems, also known as artificial pancreas systems. These technologies have significantly improved glycemic outcomes while reducing the burden of disease management, representing one of the most successful examples of the translation of automatic control methodologies into medical devices with a tangible impact on patients' lives.
This presentation will review the evolution of AID systems and discuss key challenges for the next generation of these technologies, with a focus on personalization, prompt detection of anomalies and system malfunctions, and the coordinated management of automated insulin delivery and user-initiated therapeutic actions.

Speaker Biography

Simone Del Favero is Associate Professor in the Bioengineering Group at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, Italy. He received both his M.Sc. degree and Ph.D. in Control Engineering from the University of Padova. Since joining the Bioengineering Group as a postdoctoral researcher, his work has focused on developing artificial pancreas (AP) technologies and, more broadly, on applying control engineering, machine learning, and mathematical modeling to biological and metabolic systems.

He has contributed to major international clinical studies that demonstrated the effectiveness of AP systems and supported their translation into clinical practice. He was Principal Investigator of the MIUR-funded project Learn4AP (“Learning Patient-Specific Models for an Adaptive, Fault-Tolerant Artificial Pancreas”) and currently leads research activities within an industry-sponsored collaboration with Dexcom, a global leader in glucose sensor technologies. He has authored 85 peer-reviewed journal articles and is the inventor of 11 patents and patent applications in the field of diabetes technology.