UM tests new diabetes treatment
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota: Researchers at the University of Minnesota ( UM) have studied everything from human organ donors to specially grown pigs as sources of insulinproducing islet cells for people with type 1 diabetes who lack them.
Now they are testing the transit through insulin injections. plant of islets from a new source In recent years he has become — embryonic stem cells.
The university earlier this fall blood sugar, which has resulted in became the third US academic inblackouts. Once, he awoke after stitution to transplant an islet cell falling down stairs. Another time, he product made by California-based couldn’t walk and had to crawl out ViaCyte in patients with severe of his house to meet paramedics. and poorly controlled diabetes. Having a chance at a treatment
A stem cell solution to producthat could stabilize his blood sugar felt like “winning the lotstep in the treatment of Type 1 tery,” said Romero, whose father diabetes, said medical doctor suffered a diabetic coma that left Melena Bellin, the university rehim mentally handicapped. searcher leading the local arm of “It’s not just for my sake, but the ViaCyte study. While islets can for everybody out there suffering be transplanted from deceased orfrom this disease,” Romero said. gan donors, that supply is limited “If this thing is successful, they’re and unpredictable. going to be able to help a lot of
“Really, to overcome that barpeople. There are some selfish reasons, too. I hate this disease.” of renewable source of islets,” Transplant researchers have alshe said. ways faced two challenges — how
Insulin is a hormone in the to produce enough islet cells for pancreas that regulates the body’s a sustainable supply of insulin storage and use of sugar. Type 1 diin people with type 1 diabetes, abetes is diagnosed when people and how to prevent the immune lack the islets to produce insulin. system from attacking the trans
planted cells.
New trial
Gregory Romero was the second to sign up for the trial. The 43-year old web developer has resented his Type 1 diabetes but managed
Transplant pioneer
The university pioneered transplants of islets from organ do The University of Minnesota became the third US academic institution to transplant an islet cell product made by California-based ViaCyte in patients with severe and poorly controlled diabetes. transplant was performed in Minneapolis by medical doctor David progress has resulted in the university applying to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval of its technique for procuring and transplanting donor islets.
The UM’s medical doctor Bernard Hering also has studied “xenotransplantation” of islets from pigs, which could be grown to mimic patients’ immune systems and reduce the odds of transplant rejection.
ViaCyte’s approach is to coax stem cells, which came from a human embryo that wasn’t used for in vitro fertilization, to produce immature pancreatic cells. They are then placed in pouches that are implanted in the arms and lower backs of diabetic patients, where the cells then produce islets that are released into the bloodstream.
a tightly closed pouch designed to prevent the recipients’ immune cells from entering and attacking the transplanted pancreatic cells. That would prevent patients from needing drugs to suppress their immune systems, which can be potent and cause their own severe side effects.
Bellin said this protection seems to cut the donor cells off from access to oxygen and the patients’ bloodstreams, which limits their ability to produce islets. So ViaCyte’s second product — the one the university is testing — is a pouch with small pores to increase the distribution of islets into the blood.
Patients trying this approach do need immunosuppressive drugs, Bellin said, which is why the trial is only for severe cases.
Special oversight
The university requires special oversight of research involving the transplant of embryonic stem cells because of the political sensitivities over the sources of these cells from unused human embryos. However, Bellin said the study did not require that oversight, because the transplant involved islets produced from stem cells — rather than the actual stem cells.
Romero is hopeful. Married with a two-year old daughter, he remains upset over the disease that arrested his life and disabled his father. He ate whatever he wanted out of spite and managed the disease with insulin injections. But as he has aged, and his body has stopped giving clear signals of changes in his blood sugar, he said he needs a better option.
“I spent a lot of years where it would frighten me to a point that I would just neglect my disease,” he said. “But my body doesn’t have the strength to put up with that anymore.”