A graduate student from St. Louis is part of a research team gaining recognition for their work on a capsule that can deliver insulin orally.

Alex Abramson, 26, a doctoral student in chemical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, helped invent a swallowable gadget, inspired by a tortoise shell, that can inject medicines like insulin from inside the stomach.

The capsule is three to five years away from being tested in humans, but has seen success in studies of pigs and dogs, said Abramson, a graduate of John Burroughs School.

"The goal is to deliver biologic drugs like insulin with the same efficacy as a subcutaneous injection," he said.

Patients usually prefer oral treatment, and comply with it better, but many compounds, including insulin for diabetes, can’t survive the harsh trip through the digestive system.

Abramson started working on the project in 2015 in the lab of MIT inventor Robert Langer along with a team from insulin maker Novo Nordisk.

The team designed a micro-injector, like a needle only made of dried insulin compressed into a sharp point. To power it, researchers bound a tiny spring to a hardened sugar disk.