Mice cured of diabetes: Are humans next?

USA - It’s possible to grow organs of one species inside an animal of another species and then transplant that organ to cure disease, according to a study published yesterday in Nature. In this case, mouse pancreas cells were grown in rats, then transplanted into mice to reverse diabetes. The new research opens the possibility of one day creating human organs inside animals like pigs or sheep that could then be transplanted back into needy patients.

To create the mouse pancreases, scientists first genetically engineered rats to lack a gene that’s key to developing the organ. These engineered rat embryos were then injected with mouse stem cells that can develop into any tissue or organ in the body. When the embryos grew into rats, the animals had a pancreas made up almost entirely of mouse cells. The scientists then removed the pancreas, isolated clusters of insulin-producing cells, and transplanted them into diabetic mice. The results were surprising, lead author Hiromitsu Nakauchi of Stanford University School of Medicine wrote in an email to The Verge. The transplanted cells reversed the mice’s diabetes and kept sugar levels down for one year. The mice didn’t reject the cells, even if they were given anti-rejection medication for only five days after the transplant. Much more research needs to be done to make these functional interspecies organs a reality for people, including research into the ethics of this idea. But today’s study is “a remarkable scientific achievement,” Timothy Kieffer, a professor of cellular and physiological sciences and surgery at the University of British Columbia, who didn’t work on the study, wrote in an email to The Verge. And its implications for the future are enormous. There are about 120,000 Americans who are currently on the waiting list to receive a lifesaving organ transplant, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Because of a shortage of donated hearts, lungs, and livers, more than 20 people die each day in the US on average waiting for a new organ. Some of the patients in need of transplants are people with type 1 diabetes, a chronic disease in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin, a hormone that controls sugar levels in the blood. These patients need insulin-producing cells from human donors, but because of the limited supply of donated organs, the procedure is rarely performed, says Kieffer. Instead, diabetic patients must inject insulin daily into their bodies through needles or pumps. That’s why today’s results are so important. (Theverge)