A resident of Cresskill, New Jersey, David Kushner serves as president of Paradigm Capital Group, a firm he co-founded in 1989. Paradigm works with a variety of commercial clients to supply bridge mortgage and other loans. David & Nanci Kushner’s philanthropy in his Cresskill community and beyond includes his long-standing support of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which funds live-saving investigations into the causes and treatments of type 1 diabetes in children and adults.
In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas abruptly ceases to manufacture its own insulin, and patients become dependent on daily blood-sugar-level tests and injections or infusions. Management of the condition then becomes a daily battle.
Among the exciting and innovative projects funded by the JDRF is research into the creation of an artificial pancreas is. This work has yielded precursor systems that can monitor a patient’s blood glucose levels and respond by automatically suspending infusions of insulin as needed.
The JDRF has continued to devote its efforts to expand this work into the development of sophisticated devices that can measure glucose levels and deliver a faster-acting form of insulin.
In 2016, the organization celebrated the Food and Drug Administration’s approval for the artificial pancreas marketed as the Medtronic MiniMed 670G. The device, which is the size of a cell phone, consists of a subdermal glucose meter, along with an insulin pump that is strapped to the patient’s body and is capable of delivering correct dosages using a catheter and patch.
