How Stanley Clark made the world's first portable blood glucose tester for people with diabetes
Lisa Clark spent a huge portion of her childhood in and out of hospitals for blood-glucose checks.    
The 56-year-old was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in the 1970s.
At the time, children with this type of diabetes could typically only have their blood glucose levels measured in hospital, which Ms Clark said took its toll.
"I'd be in and out of hospital every two to three months," she said.
"I'd be there for a week or two and that was basically to get the sugar levels back to where they should be."
Currently, there is no cure to type 1 diabetes and it is a lifelong condition.
According to Diabetes Australia, about 10 per cent of people with diabetes have type 1.
People with diabetes have to monitor their glucose levels, which can be done using a blood glucose monitor.
Ms Clark said while there was home urine glucose testing available during her childhood, it was often inaccurate.
So her dad, Stanley Clark, invented the world's first portable battery-operated blood glucose monitor.
"I often say my dad's invention was the next best thing to insulin and in a diabetic's life it was, and it still is today," Ms Clark said.
"He was brilliant — there was no other way to describe my dad."
Mr Clark was an electronics and mechanical engineer.
He was able to figure out how the blood glucose machines at hospitals worked and made a miniature version in the backyard of their suburban home in northern Sydney.
The machine allowed people with diabetes to monitor their own sugar levels by pricking a finger and dropping some blood onto the machine's testing strip, which would return results within minutes.
"He looked at the machine and worked out how it worked and made it portable," Mrs Clark said.
"Took him a couple of days, a week."
Mr Clark's work was one of the landmark achievements in diabetes care and management, according to the Stan Clark chair in diabetes at the University of Sydney, Stephen Twigg.
"[Stan] made a major contribution," Professor Twigg said.
"There's no doubt that Stan in his backyard factory … he pushed the field along in a very accelerated manner."
Ms Clark has published a book, The Sweetest of All Inventions, dedicated to her father's work, to coincide with this year's National Diabetes Week.
She hopes it will help keep her dad's story alive.
"People that are diagnosed today or 10 years ago probably are not aware of Stan Clark," she said.
The original model of the tester is still tucked away safely in a box at her property in Holgate on the New South Wales Central Coast.
Ms Clark said she would likely take it to her grave.
"The very first one I actually have and dad's written on it 'Lisa's, save,'" she said.
"We call him an unsung hero because I believe he should be even more recognised for the work he did."
National Diabetes Week aims to encourage more conversations about the impact of diabetes in Australia. It runs from July 9 to 15.
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