Mills-Peninsula’s Diabetes Research Institute is dedicated to improving quality of life for people with diabetes and to searching for diabetes treatments.

"We have access to very effective drugs and devices for diabetes years before they come on the market," says David Klonoff, M.D., medical director of the institute. "We do clinical trials to help these medicines get approved by the Food and Drug Administration."

Signing up for clinical trials allows participants to try products before they are widely available.

"We are working with new drugs, new types of insulin and new devices for measuring glucose," says Dr. Klonoff. "We’re currently testing a glucose monitor that will read the blood sugar level without needing to prick the finger. We’re working on another study of inhaled insulin."

Dr. Klonoff encourages people with diabetes who are interested in taking part in a clinical trial to call the institute at 650.696.4260.

Mills-Peninsula also is co-sponsoring two upcoming meetings, the diabetes technology meeting in the fall, with the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Army, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, U.C. Berkeley and Georgia Institute of Technology. In the spring, Mills-Peninsula will co-sponsor a clinical diabetes meeting with UCSF, Stanford University, Yale University, the Barbara Davis Diabetes Center, Pennsylvania State University and the U.S. Army.