Stem Cell Success Raises Hopes of Type 1 Diabetes Cure

In laboratory, researchers have developed insulin-producing beta cells

Excerpt from
nlm.nih.gov
 

THURSDAY, Oct. 9, 2014 (HealthDay News) — In what

may be a step toward a cure for type 1 diabetes, researchers say

they’ve developed a large-scale method for turning human embryonic stem

cells into fully functioning beta cells capable of producing insulin.

Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder affecting upwards of 3

million Americans, is characterized by the body’s destruction of its own

insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. Without insulin, which is

needed to convert food into energy, blood sugar regulation is

dangerously out of whack.

Currently, people with type 1 diabetes need daily insulin injections

to maintain blood sugar control. But “insulin injections don’t cure the

disease,” said study co-author Douglas Melton, of Harvard University.

Patients are vulnerable to metabolic swings that can bring about serious

complications, including blindness and limb loss, he said at a

teleconference this week.

“We wanted to replace insulin injections using nature’s own solution,

being the pancreatic beta cell,” Melton said. Now, “we are reporting

the ability to make hundreds of millions of these cells,” he added.

Melton ultimately envisions a credit card-sized package of beta cells

that can be safely transplanted into a diabetes patient and left in

place for a year or more, before needing to be replaced.

But between then and now, human trials must be launched, a venture Melton thinks could begin in about three years.

If that research pans out, the Harvard team’s results may prove to be

a benchmark in the multi-decade effort to deliver on the promise of

stem cell research as a way to access new treatments for all sorts of

diseases.

SOURCES: Douglas A. Melton, Ph.D., co-scientific director, department

of stem cell and regenerative biology, Harvard Stem Cell Institute,

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; Albert Hwa, Ph.D., director,

discovery research, JDRF; Oct. 9, 2014 Issue of  Cell

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Stem Cell Success Raises Hopes of Type 1 Diabetes Cure