Posted on 02/16/2005 8:36:27 PM PST by neverdem
Doctors may have found a way around a major obstacle in the effort to perfect transplants of islet cells, an experimental treatment for Type 1 diabetes, a severe form that often begins in childhood.
Such transplants usually succeed only if islet cells from the pancreases of two or even three donors are used - a significant drawback, given the scarcity of donor organs. But now, in a trial of eight patients at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, doctors have managed successful transplants of islet cells, which are needed to produce insulin, with the pancreases of single donors.
The use of anti-inflammatory drugs that are normally used to treat arthritis seems to have enabled many more of the transplanted cells to survive, said Dr. Bernhard J. Hering, director of the islet transplant program at the University of Minnesota. Patients were given these drugs before surgery to dampen the inflammation that otherwise destroys as many as half of transplanted islet cells in the first 24 hours, Dr. Hering said.
The doctors also cultured the donated islet cells in the laboratory for two days, rather than transplanting them within hours of isolating them from the donor pancreas. This step appears to give the islet cells greater resilience, Dr. Hering said.
The results of the trial are reported today in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
"This is really a long-awaited development, if it can be reproduced, because it means that the efficiency of islet cells is being increased," said Dr. R. Paul Robertson, scientific director of the Pacific Northwest Research Institute, a diabetes research center in Seattle. Dr. Robertson was not involved in the trial.
Diabetes researchers hope islet-cell transplants, which can be done almost as easily as a blood transfusion, in less than an hour, will one day free many people with Type 1 diabetes from the need to inject themselves with insulin several times a day to control their blood sugar.
But refining the procedure has not been easy. Among the first patients to have successful transplants five years ago, most are using insulin again-though not as much as they needed before their transplants.
Type 1 diabetes, sometimes called juvenile diabetes, occurs when the body's immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, which are contained in tiny structures called the islets of Langerhans.
An estimated one million people in the United States have Type 1 diabetes.
Although it is possible to transplant the entire pancreas, the risk of death is great enough that the operation is rarely done in people who do not also need a kidney transplant because of diabetes-related kidney failure. Islet-cell transplants are less invasive and less dangerous.
Islet cells, which make up about 2 percent of the pancreas, can be isolated from cadaver pancreases and then transplanted through a catheter into the recipient's liver. They cannot be placed into the pancreas, because that organ is too vulnerable to inflammation.
When islet-cell transplants were first performed in humans, in the 1980's, they were rarely successful. But five years ago, surgeons at the University of Alberta in Edmonton adjusted the combination of immunity-suppressing drugs that are used to prevent rejection of the new cells and achieved successful transplants in eight patients.
Since then, the Edmonton protocol, with some variations, has been used on about 500 patients worldwide, said Dr. James Shapiro, director of the islet-cell transplant program at the University of Alberta, who designed the protocol.
"We've come a long way in a really short time, and I think islet transplantation is here to stay," Dr. Shapiro said. "It's still far from perfect, however."
A total of 73 patients have now received islet-cell transplants in Edmonton, most of whom have had the procedure twice. One year after transplant, 82 percent of patients need no insulin injections. After three years, however, that number falls to about 50 percent, Dr. Shapiro said. But after five years, he said, it appears that only 15 percent will still be independent of insulin.
"It appears that some of the grafts are failing, but it is not a complete failure," Dr. Shapiro said. "Some of the transplanted cells are still producing insulin."
Some of the cells may succumb to the anti-rejection drugs. Or perhaps the autoimmune reaction that caused the patient's diabetes kills them, Dr. Shapiro said.
Last month, working with surgeons in Kyoto, Japan, Dr. Shapiro accomplished the first islet-cell transplant from a living donor. A 27-year-old woman with Type 1 diabetes was given islet cells that had been isolated from half of her mother's pancreas.
Such transplants would expand the supply of donor cells. But some experts are wary of risks to donors.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Go go go. They can't perfect it soon enough for me.
Thanks so much for the ping.
Before the first 20 responses are in some ignorant b@$tard will be on here saying something to the effect of "the lazy fat asses deserve diabetes."
My son developed diabetes at age 2. He is now 14 and has one complication. In the last 12 years, every single day he or I have given him a shot of insulin, at least 3 times/day and most often more like 5 times/day.
ping in case this fits the bill.
Born Conservative is on the list. But that was nice of you anyway!
Cool! Hope the FDA approves this one!
My wife has been type 1 for about 5 years. She works very hard at controlling her condition and the ignoramuses just get me riled sometimes.
The good news that I've heard about diabetes research is that the "blueprints" of this disease are being understood better and better everyday as compared to other killers. In terms of complexity, it seems that scientists will likely develop a cure within our lifetimes...and even a vaccine to prevent new cases of the juvenile-onset version. What amazing strides.
It is a curse for those who have it and their families. It is very expensive to insurance companies for everyone else...so a true cure would be a blessing for everyone. My hat is off to those brilliant researchers.
~ Blue Jays ~
Agreed. It is simply amazing some of the medical progress that happens nowadays. Of course, if it isn't about hair loss or sexual maladies, you won't hear about them much in the press.
Diseases like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease kill hundreds of thousands of people each year...but if you listen to the mainstream media you would think the only problem we're facing these days is HIV/AIDS.
Diabetes can lead to a variety of other unpleasant problems, so the more progress these researchers make, the better. It must be incredible to be that intelligent and working to help so many grateful people...
~ Blue Jays ~
My young son developed it at age 4. He is turning 9 shortly and mostly takes care of himself. Waiting for insurance approval for the pump. Everyone is amazed at his nutritional expertise and the math skill necessary to track everything.
This development looks awesome... I've been concerned a bit about the possibility of having to make a future decision based on stem cell research.
Hopefully this type of cure will come along first. But I suspect they are going to have to figure out what it is that is killing the pancreas in the first place... it appears that over time the same thing is happening to these transplants.
Press Release Source: Tissera, Inc.
An Article Reporting Important Results of Tissera's Sponsored Research Elected for Publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Wednesday February 16, 9:30 am ET
HERZLIA, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 16, 2005--Tissera, Inc. (OTCBB:TSSR - News) reports that an article entitled "Embryonic Pig Liver, Pancreas and Lung as a Source for Transplantation: Optimal Organogenesis without Teratoma Depends on Distinct Time Windows", authored by Prof. Yair Reisner, Director of Tissera's sponsored research, and his team at the Weizmann Institute of Science, has been found worthy of being published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), and has appeared in its February 14th online edition. Furthermore, the article has been flagged by the PNAS for press interest, and, consequently, a synopsis of the article (following below) has been edited by the PNAS, to be distributed to journalists via e-mail and posted on online news service sites.
The study appears in the online edition of PNAS, and may be obtained in PDF from the PNAS website, www.pnas.org.
The research referred by the article has been performed as part of Tissera's Research and Development plan, drawn on the premises that ways might be found to utilize various porcine fetal tissues for transplantation into human patients in need. The Company's R&D efforts are directed towards the accomplishment of its mission to develop and commercialize such a transplantation technology, thus providing a universally available and reliable source of donor organs to those so many patients awaiting organ transplantation, who currently suffer from the severe shortage of donor organs. The research results featuring in the article mark the achievement of important milestones in the implementation of the Company's technology development plan and mission.
The publication of the study in the PNAS is a much significant recognition, by an internationally renowned and respected academic authority, of the cutting-edge scientific value of the work being performed by the Company-sponsored research team at the Weizmann Institute of Science, under the leadership of Prof. Reisner.
In keeping with Tissera's working plan, the research is now moving forward to its next stage, involving, among other applications, the implementation in large animal models of the Company's approach to the therapy of Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus.
PNAS Synopsis
Growing Human Organs From Embryonic Pig Cells
Growing new organs in humans from embryonic pig tissues may be feasible, researchers report, but the cells need to come from specific stages of an embryo's development. Using pig tissue to replace human organs could help patients with diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and liver failure, but researchers have so far faced a challenge of balance. On the one hand, stem cells taken from very early in an embryo's development tend to develop tumors after transplantation, whereas tissue from adult organs face rejection by the recipient's immune system. Taking cells from an embryonic organ soon after it has begun to form may strike the ideal balance. To investigate the best time to harvest embryonic cells, Yair Reisner and colleagues took embryonic pig tissue that had begun to form particular organs at various developmental stages and transplanted them into mice. The researchers studied three types of organs--liver, pancreas, and lung--and found unique growth patterns. Optimal time windows were clearly seen for each organ. The authors say these findings may help in part to explain the failure of previous transplantation trials of pancreatic islets in diabetic patients.
Article #05-00177: "Embryonic pig liver, pancreas and lung as a source for transplantation: optimal organogenesis without teratoma depends on distinct time windows" by Smadar Eventov-Friedman, Helena Katchman, Elias Shezen, Anna Aronovich, Dalit Tchorsh, Benjamin Dekel, Enrique Freud, and Yair Reisner.
About Tissera
Tissera is a biotechnology company dedicated to the development of novel tissue precursor regeneration technologies for treating gene deficiencies and diseases in which organ transplantation is necessary, while minimizing the dosage of immunosuppressive drugs. Tissera obtained the license for the worldwide exclusive rights to the technology developed by Professor Yair Reisner and his team at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. In this research, scientists successfully implanted in mice embryonic human and porcine organ precursor tissues, which grew into functional organs. This research was published in Nature Medicine and attracted worldwide scientific and media attention.
About PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America)
PNAS is one of the world's most-cited multidisciplinary scientific serials. Since its establishment in 1914, it continues to publish cutting-edge research reports, commentaries, reviews, perspectives, colloquium papers, and actions of the Academy. Coverage in PNAS spans the biological, physical, and social sciences. PNAS is published weekly in print, and daily online in PNAS Early Edition. www.pnas.org
Safe Harbor Statement
"Statements in this document that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this release include statements regarding our developing technology into a useful product, our moving forward with our plans for trials, and our plans to expand the Company's infrastructure. Actual outcomes and our actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Such statements, including statements regarding freedom to operate, patentability, infringement, clinical trials, involve significant risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied herein. Factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to, risks associated with new product development (including clinical trials outcome and regulatory requirements/actions), competitive risks to marketed products and availability of financing that could cause actual results to differ materially include risks and uncertainties such as the inability to further finance our plans and unforeseen technical difficulties in developing our technology, which could among other things, delay or prevent product development and our planned results. For further risk factors see the Company's 10-KSB filed with the SEC for our latest fiscal year."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact:
Tissera, Inc.
(Investor Relations)
Dr. Uri Elmaleh, 972-54-2223344
uri@tissera.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Tissera, Inc.
You're going to absolutely *love* the pump! My son's had his since September and I wouldn't have it any other way. (And, if he can play a Gameboy, he can easily program that pump!)
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