Type I Diabetes Ping List
FR mail me to add yourself! (Type IIs welcome, too.)
Posted on 05/25/2007 2:47:34 PM PDT by DaveLoneRanger
In a fundamental discovery that someday may help cure type 1 diabetes by allowing people to grow their own insulin-producing cells for a damaged or defective pancreas, medical researchers here have reported that they have engineered adult stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood to produce insulin.
The researchers announced their laboratory finding, which caps nearly four years of research, in the June 2007 issue of the medical journal Cell Proliferation, posted online this week. Their paper calls it "the first demonstration that human umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells can be engineered" to synthesize insulin.
"This discovery tells us that we have the potential to produce insulin from adult stem cells to help people with diabetes," said Dr. Randall J. Urban, senior author of the paper, professor and chair of internal medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and director of UTMB’s Nelda C. and Lutcher H. J. Stark Diabetes Center. Stressing that the reported discovery is extremely basic research, Urban cautioned: "It doesn’t prove that we’re going to be able to do this in people — it’s just the first step up the rung of the ladder."
The lead author of the paper, UTMB professor of internal medicine/endocrinology Larry Denner, said that by working with adult stem cells rather than embryonic stem cells, doctors practicing so-called regenerative medicine eventually might be able to extract stem cells from an individual’s blood, then grow them in the laboratory to large numbers and tweak them so that they are directed to create a needed organ. In this way, he said, physicians might avoid the usual pitfall involved in transplanting cells or organs from other people — organ rejection, which requires organ recipients to take immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of their lives.
Huge numbers of stem cells are thought to be required to create new organs. Researchers might remove thousands of donor cells from an individual and grow them in the laboratory into billions of cells, Denner explained. Then, for a person with type 1 diabetes, researchers might engineer these cells to become islets of Langerhans, the cellular masses that produce the hormone insulin, which allows the body to utilize sugar, synthesize proteins and store neutral fats, or lipids. "But we’re a long way from that," Denner warned.
Denner said this research, which reflects a fruitful collaboration with co-authors Drs. Colin McGuckin and Nico Forraz at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in the United Kingdom, used human umbilical cord blood because it is an especially rich source of fresh adult stem cells and is easily available from donors undergoing Caesarian section deliveries in UTMB hospitals. "However," he added, "embryonic stem cell research was absolutely necessary to teach us how to do this."
Embryonic stem cells have been engineered to produce cardiac, neural, blood, lung and liver progenitor cells that perform many of the functions needed to help replace cells and tissues injured by many diseases, the paper notes. Among the insights into cell and tissue engineering gained from work with embryonic stem cells, it adds, are those "relevant to the engineering of functional equivalents of pancreatic, islet-like, glucose-responsive, insulin-producing cells to treat diabetes."
The researchers said they tested adult stem cells in the laboratory to ensure that they were predisposed to divide. Then they used a previously successful method in which complex signals produced by the embryonic mouse pancreas were used to direct adult stem cells to begin developing, or "differentiating," into islet-like cells.
As they grew these adult stem cells in the laboratory, the researchers conducted other tests in which the cells to be engineered showed evidence of a characteristic, or marker, known as SSEA-4 that was previously thought to exist only in embryonic cells. They also found that, just as embryonic cells have been shown to do, these adult stem cells produced both C-peptide, a part of the insulin precursor protein, and insulin itself. Confirming the presence of the C-peptide was especially crucial, the researchers suggested, because although insulin is often found in the growth media with which the cells are nurtured and is often taken up by such cells, the presence of the C-peptide proves that at least some of the insulin was produced, or synthesized, by the engineered cells.
Stem cell ping.
I hardly ever see articles like this in my local fishwrap.
Huh. All these miraculous treatments and not a single embryo had to be destroyed. I could have sworn we had to destroy embryos in order to cure things. Michael J. Fox said so.
A rough idea of how Type I diabetes works is your immune system is attacking your islet cells because it thinks they are a hostile organism. There has been no definitive reason as to why this happens.
For this recent study, they grow the cells, then have you come in to their facility for a weekend. During that time, they shock your immune system, which temporarily shuts it down. This is why you have to be in their facility so that you can be in a clean environment. Then they inject the cells into you and allow them to plant themselves to the pancreas. When your immune system comes back up, it treats everything that is present as okay so it doesn’t attack the new cells.
I asked my doctor, “so does this mean we may see this in 10 years?” He said no way. Since this study was done and they did this on humans with an 80% success, we’ll see this in the next couple years.
But before every Type I gets their hopes up, this was done with recently (up to 6 months) diagnosed Type I diabetics. It’s possible this may not work for those who have had it for years. Regardless, I’m still excited. Even if I have to go in 4 times a year, that’s better than 4 shots a day.
Just what are you trying to suggest?? ;-)
ping
thanks, bfl
As a parent of two type 1s (ages 11 and 13) I hope your doc is right.
Keep us apprised
bump
Abstract. Objectives: In this study, we investigated the potential of umbilical cord blood stem cell lineages to produce C-peptide and insulin. Materials and methods: Lineage negative, CD133+ and CD34+ cells were analyzed by flow cytometry to assess expression of cell division antigens. These lineages were expanded in culture and subjected to an established protocol to differentiate mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) toward the pancreatic phenotype. Phase contrast and fluorescence immunocytochemistry were used to characterize differentiation markers with particular emphasis on insulin and C-peptide. Results: All 3 lineages expressed SSEA-4, a marker previously reported to be restricted to the ESC compartment. Phase contrast microscopy showed all three lineages recapitulated the treatment-dependent morphological changes of ESCs as well as the temporally restricted expression of nestin and vimentin during differentiation. After engineering, each isolate contained both C-peptide and insulin, a result also obtained following a much shorter protocol for ESCs. Conclusions: Since C-peptide can only be derived from de novo synthesis and processing of pre-proinsulin mRNA and protein, we conclude that these results are the first demonstration that human umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells can be engineered to engage in de novo synthesis of insulin.
Thanks for letting me know about this, Jeff.
Thanks, I feel guarded excitement about this.
Pro-Life/Terri Dailies/Catholic/Moral Absolutes “Triple Whopper with Cheese” ping!
What an interesting procedure. That reminds me, it’s time to reboot my computer.
Adult Pancreas Stem Cells Can Make Insulin
Pig Cells 'May Reverse Diabetes'
New Applications For Cord Lining Stem Cells - Diabetes And Wound Healing
Diabetes In Mice Cured Using Non-Embryonic Sources
Diabetes Foundation Loses Its Way The Pro-Abortion Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Stem Cells May Help Bergen Boy Fight Diabetes
Adult Stem Cell Research Breakthrough Produces Insulin For Diabetics
Diabetes In Mice Cured Using Non-Embryonic Sources
A Stem-Cell Defection, A Congressman Educates.
Stem cell cure hope for diabetes
Cells Passed From Mother To Child May Be First Step In Developing New Treatments For Type 1 Diabetes
Cells Passed From Mother To Child May Be First Step In Developing New Treatments For Type 1 Diabetes
Pig cell transplants may treat human diabetes
Stem cells could spell end for diabetes jabs
Diabetics cured by stem-cell treatment
Stem cell experiment lets diabetics forgo insulin, transplants performed on diabetics in Brazil
Coleus, thanks for the ping!
PING to the rest of you!! ::grin::
REMARKS BY JOHN PAUL II to PRESIDENT BUSH
July 23, 2001
Pro-Life PING
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
Thank you Lord... I knew they were close for a long time.
I’ll email it out... that’s the only way anyone will know.
OK, now inject that s**t into me Now!
Did you, perhaps, miss this part?
Neat. Thanks for posting this.
Was human embryonic stem cell research necessary? Or would research from the embryonic stem cells of other mammals suffice?
I wonder if embryonic stem cell research on non-human mammals would suffice...
Maybe even the basic knowledge was needed, but now that the harvested ASC are better use, and there isn't the messy moral issues, they are able to produce better results.
Like junk mail they are sent out regularly to obtain funding.
Perhaps I’ve overreacted, but every time I see a Stem Cell thread, your Pro-Life group is pinged, as if all stem cell research=harvested and slaughtered embryos.
An umbilical cord comes from a viable afterbirth. Embryonic Research Lines have been drawn in the sand, and have proven to be little but tumor factories - life slaughtered at the Left’s Altar.
This is wonderful news, particularly for afflicted children, and, unless you’re something like Christian Scientist (who disavow most medicine), there are few ethical considerations to create a dustup.
Exactly, and that is a wonderful reason to PING the group.
Unfortunately much of the news under “pro-life” is bad news, but we try our best to ping on all the good news there is. On the adult stem cell arena there is much good news to ping about.
Why can’t some filtering gizmo be created to allow the insulin generating cells to get nourishment and put out their insulin as required, while still shielding them from the body’s immune system.
I’ve heard of some studies doing just that. Some of Coleus’ links in his above post may talk about it more. The only problem with a sort of shield around the islet cells is your immune system is still expending energy trying to attack those cells. So in theory you have the potential of your immune system always functioning at 90% or 80% (hypothetical).
No facts behind any of this, I’m just speculating as to why that type of procedure hasn’t gained as much popularity.
Even so -- even supposing that they succeed in mass-producing such cells, the really difficult problem is still on the table; namely, Type I diabetes occurs because the body's immune system kills the insulin-producing beta cells.
Any researcher will tell you that the key to the whole shebang is finding out how to avoid, block, trick, prevent, or otherwise get around the body's immune system in a beta-cell-specific way.
OH?
A bit of belly button makes the medicine go down...
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