Insulin-making cells may be grown in the lab

This advancement in the field of diabetes can prove to be a big change in the life of many diabetics especially the Type I diabetes. In this type the body stops producing insulin and the patient is to be on injectable insulin all life.

Dr.Fred Levine, an associate professor at the University of California at San Diego, and colleagues reported that they have successfully grown genetically engineered beta cells — cells that naturally produce the hormone insulin in the body — and that these lab-grown cells are able to secrete insulin both in a test tube and when injected into animals. When these cells are transplanted into mice, they work. Dr. Levine presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association. This work is a significant advance in transplants and in treating diabetes.

An unlimited tissue supply would allow doctors to reverse diabetes in many patients with the type 1 form of the disease and help prevent or delay many of the complications that diabetics face, such as kidney disease, blindness, heart disease and foot or leg ulcerations that can require amputation.       

However, the work so far is preliminary, and no one knows whether these transplants will work for a lifetime or whether serious side effects could result from the immune system-suppressing drugs that prevent the body from rejecting the foreign tissue. There also are concerns that these medications could increase the risk of cancer and infection.       

Beta cells are one of four types of cells that make up islets, which are clusters of cells in the pancreas.The beta cells make up 80 percent of islets. The study reported recently involved transplants of whole islets taken from the pancreases of cadavers and transferred into patients with advanced type 1 diabetes. The islets were injected directly into a blood vessel that leads to the liver, where they took hold and immediately began producing insulin in all patients.

Tissue transplants also may one day help some of the patients with the more common form of diabetes, type 2. This type of diabetes develops in elderly age group and most of them can be controlled on oral medication.