Diabetes in Mice Cured Using Non-Embryonic Sources

Foundation Seeks $11 Million to Fund Promising Research in Humans
Diabetes in Mice Cured Using Non-Embryonic Sources

By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. For more information on Dr. Denise Faustman's research and the effort of the Iacocca Foundation to raise money to support it, please go to http://www.joinleenow.org.

To most Americans, the enduring image of Lee Iacocca is of the charismatic head of the Chrysler Corporation during the 1980s. His role as philanthropist is much less well known.

Iacocca's wife, Mary, died of complications from Type I diabetes 21 years ago. Following her death, as Iacocca has said many times, "my family and I began a journey to support innovative diabetes research."

Iacocca's foundation is currently raising $11 million to support the work of Dr. Denise Faustman, whose research team in 2003 not only reversed, but actually cured Type I diabetes in mice. This is of particular interest to pro-lifers because her work is proving yet again that there is no need to lethally scavenge stem cells from human embryos to treat diseases.

To get a good feel for Dr. Faustman's work, ironically, you could hardly do better than this quote from (of all places) the November 9, 2004, edition of the New York Times. Writes Gina Kolata, "Dr. Faustman's story, scientists say, illustrates the difficulties that creative scientists can have when their work questions conventional wisdom and runs into entrenched interests. But if she is correct, scientists will also have to reconsider many claims for embryonic stem cells as a cure for diabetes, and perhaps for other diseases." (emphasis mine)

At first glance, you wouldn't think that finding additional financing that builds on a genuine medical first would be hard. But it has been excruciatingly difficult.

Kolata says that Dr. Faustman and some colleagues believe the reason is simple: "her findings, which raise the possibility that an inexpensive, readily available drug might effectively treat Type 1 or juvenile diabetes, challenge widespread assumptions." Among the assumptions, held by "many diabetes researchers" is the insistence that "a cure lies ... in research on stem cells and islet cell transplants."

Dr. Faustman, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, thinks otherwise.

Insulin is produced by clusters of cells in the pancreas called the islets of Langerhans. Insulin, a hormone, helps the body use glucose (sugar) for energy.

Diabetes results when a white blood cell mistakes islet cells for foreign tissue. As a key component of the body's immune system, the misguided white cell then does its duty: it multiplies and destroys the islets.

Until recently most research trying to treat Type I diabetes assumed the patient would receive a islet cells transplant to replace those killed by the marauding white blood cells. Most of those islet cells came from cadavers.

Caught up in the frenzy over the supposed unlimited curative powers of embryonic stem cells, many have begun to argue that harvesting islet cells from cadavers is inefficient and unnecessary. They contend that the best technique is to harvest embryonic stem cells which, they theorize, could be altered into becoming islet cells. This is part and parcel of the hype that embryonic stem cells can be changed into any body cell as easy as pie and without danger to the patient.

Dr. Faustman, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, has moved in a much more productive and ethically unobjectionable direction. Working with colleagues at the diabetes unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, she discovered that they could neutralize the attacking white cells "by supplying them with a piece of protein that signaled that the islet cells were normal cells," Kolata writes.

But what about the white cells already laying siege to the pancreas? These white cells need to be destroyed.

According to Kolata, one of Dr. Faustman's breakthroughs was to give mice a very, very inexpensive off-patent drug that stimulates the release of an immune system hormone which kills the offending white cells. However, the real eye-opener was what followed the administration of both treatments to mice.

Not only did the immune system's attack on the islet cells cease, the islets grew back! At the time, this was completely unheard of.

The obvious question was, where were the new cells coming from? The "surprising answer" was the spleen.

What did Dr. Faustman's work show? That targeted disease removal was sufficient, without the need for cells from any external source. The once diabetic animals regenerated islets from cell precursors that already existed in their bodies. Ironically, while there has been a major emphasis on identifying cells for transplantation to treat Type I diabetes, there had been no prior evidence that self healing was not possible through regeneration.

Consider how this research both neutralizes the case for embryonic stem cells and points out its multiple weaknesses.

As mentioned, a number of researchers say the answer is to just program embryonic stem cells to become islet cells and avoid the difficult and time-consuming task of harvesting islet cells from cadavers. However, this "solution" is wrong on three grounds.

First, it hasn't been demonstrated to work. Second, as science writer Michael Fumento has observed, not only do embryonic stem cells "implanted into animals have a nasty tendency to cause malignant tumors," the "body rejects them just as it rejects donated organs." Moreover, unless the underlying disease is cured, new cells - - regardless of source - - would be destroyed.

But as the magazine Diabetes Health wrote in its January 2005 edition, "If the [body's] capacity to regenerate can be harnessed to replenish insulin-producing islet cells that are destroyed by disease, then perhaps a 'transplant' of stem cells or islets may not be needed."

The Iacocca Foundation is raising $11 million to fund the initial phase of a clinical trial in humans based on Dr. Faustman's success in mice. According to the February Diabetes Health, there are two primary emphases.

Dr. David Nathan is a colleague of Dr. Faustman at Massachusetts General. He'll be investigating whether the immune system hormone (BCG) used in mice will kill the islet-killing white blood cells, and, if it does, examine "safety, optimal timing for administration and best dosage," according to the February Diabetes Health.

Dr. Faustman will be "working on a blood test that will immediately assess the effects of BCG by determining whether the dangerous white cells are being destroyed," Kolata writes.

As for Iacocca, he is eager to push on - - and now. "I can't wait for the pharmaceutical companies or even government tax money to fund what looks promising,'' Iacocca told Kolata. "They are not known for high risk and they are also slow to react. We are trying to get a cure.''

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