Stem Cells May Functionally Cure Type 1 Diabetes
BY DANIEL STARKEY 08.08.2017 @DCSTARKEY
https://www.geek.com/science/stem-cells-may-functionally-cure-type-1-diabetes-1711093/
Living with type 1 diabetes can be really rough. There’s a lot of injections and that you have to keep up with and even then, heart health, cardiovascular, and brain health can take some big hits. Some choose to use an insulin pump, but even that has its issues. The disorder affects the immune system, causing it to recognize the cells that make insulin and attacks them. One medical device company, Viacyte, is hoping that they’ve got a device that can protect a special crop of stem cells so that they can live inside the body and produce enough insulin to mostly cure the condition.
About the size of a credit-card, the PEC-Direct contain cells that will respond to rises in blood sugar and begin producing their own insulin, just as the body would on its own. The auto-immune issue is still there, but the device can keep the cells alive long enough to be a cure in all but name.
“If it works, we would call it a functional cure,” Viacyte representative, Paul Laikind, told New Scientist. “It’s not truly a cure because we wouldn’t address the autoimmune cause of the disease, but we would be replacing the missing cells.”
PEC-Direct allows blood vessels to grow into the device itself, allowing the body to feed the stem cells. After three months, they will become islet cells — the kind that monitor the body’s blood sugar and produce and release insulin to compensate. A special fabric helps foster that growth, but patients would still need to take steroids or other immunosuppressing drugs to keep their immune systems from wiping out the freshly-hated insulin-makers.
Earlier studies have shown that the device really works — safeguarding the newly implanted stem cells long enough for them to mature, but the trial didn’t use enough of them to actually have medically significant effects.
Last week Viacyte gave the implant to two patients with type 1 diabetes, and if all goes well, in a few months, they basically won’t have to worry about their blood sugar for the rest of their lives. The immune-suppressing drugs will still be a factor and could increase the likelihood of contracting many communicable diseases, but the worst of it — including long-term brain damage, possible amputations, etc. — wouldn’t be an issue.
If this trial works, then we may be able to “cure” it for all 42 million people with the condition in relatively short order. Pancreatic transplants can already cure the condition, but there are far, far fewer donors than needed. Stem cells can be cloned essentially forever, meaning that we could easily create a batch that could be cultured and implanted, freeing millions from injections and finicky or cumbersome pumps.
“A limitless source of human, insulin-producing cells would be a major step forward on the journey to a… cure for diabetes,” University of Alberta professor and Viacyte collaborator James Shapiro told New Scientist. “For sure, this will, in the end, prove to be a durable landmark for progress in diabetes care.”
BY DANIEL STARKEY 08.08.2017 @DCSTARKEY
https://www.geek.com/science/stem-cells-may-functionally-cure-type-1-diabetes-1711093/
Living with type 1 diabetes can be really rough. There’s a lot of injections and that you have to keep up with and even then, heart health, cardiovascular, and brain health can take some big hits. Some choose to use an insulin pump, but even that has its issues. The disorder affects the immune system, causing it to recognize the cells that make insulin and attacks them. One medical device company, Viacyte, is hoping that they’ve got a device that can protect a special crop of stem cells so that they can live inside the body and produce enough insulin to mostly cure the condition.
About the size of a credit-card, the PEC-Direct contain cells that will respond to rises in blood sugar and begin producing their own insulin, just as the body would on its own. The auto-immune issue is still there, but the device can keep the cells alive long enough to be a cure in all but name.
“If it works, we would call it a functional cure,” Viacyte representative, Paul Laikind, told New Scientist. “It’s not truly a cure because we wouldn’t address the autoimmune cause of the disease, but we would be replacing the missing cells.”
PEC-Direct allows blood vessels to grow into the device itself, allowing the body to feed the stem cells. After three months, they will become islet cells — the kind that monitor the body’s blood sugar and produce and release insulin to compensate. A special fabric helps foster that growth, but patients would still need to take steroids or other immunosuppressing drugs to keep their immune systems from wiping out the freshly-hated insulin-makers.
Earlier studies have shown that the device really works — safeguarding the newly implanted stem cells long enough for them to mature, but the trial didn’t use enough of them to actually have medically significant effects.
Last week Viacyte gave the implant to two patients with type 1 diabetes, and if all goes well, in a few months, they basically won’t have to worry about their blood sugar for the rest of their lives. The immune-suppressing drugs will still be a factor and could increase the likelihood of contracting many communicable diseases, but the worst of it — including long-term brain damage, possible amputations, etc. — wouldn’t be an issue.
If this trial works, then we may be able to “cure” it for all 42 million people with the condition in relatively short order. Pancreatic transplants can already cure the condition, but there are far, far fewer donors than needed. Stem cells can be cloned essentially forever, meaning that we could easily create a batch that could be cultured and implanted, freeing millions from injections and finicky or cumbersome pumps.
“A limitless source of human, insulin-producing cells would be a major step forward on the journey to a… cure for diabetes,” University of Alberta professor and Viacyte collaborator James Shapiro told New Scientist. “For sure, this will, in the end, prove to be a durable landmark for progress in diabetes care.”