Posted on 06/20/2008 9:38:11 PM PDT by neverdem
A radical technique for treating diabetes could recruit cells in the gut to make insulin
SAN DIEGO If your pancreas fails you, go with your gut.
Inserting a gene into gut cells in mice enabled those cells to take over the pancreass job, producing insulin after meals, according to unpublished research announced June 18 in San Diego at the Biotechnology Industry Organization International Convention. The work may offer a novel way to treat diabetes.
"This is the first time that we've engineered a tissue that is not the pancreas to manufacture insulin" in animals, says researcher Anthony Cheung, a molecular biologist and cofounder of enGene, a biotechnology company based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
"It's going to be very beneficial to patients," comments Christopher Rhodes, research director of the Kovler Diabetes Center at the University of Chicago, who enGene asked to critique the research. "It's a very promising approach." Cheung says that he and his colleagues hope to begin safety trials in people by 2010.
People with diabetes don't produce enough insulin to properly control their blood sugar. Often, the pancreatic cells that produce the insulin have become damaged, either from attack by the immune system or from chronic overtaxing because of poor diet.
Existing treatments include frequent intravenous injections of insulin and transplant of pancreas cells from cadavers into diabetes patients. Scientists have also proposed using stem cells to make fresh pancreas cells for transplant. The new research presents the possibility of recruiting cells at the junction between the stomach and small intestines to make insulin instead.
"It's a lot simpler than transplanting beta cells," the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, Cheung says. The new approach could potentially treat both juvenile and late-onset diabetes, Rhodes adds.
New gene, new job
The gut cells, called K cells, sit at the...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
Keep up the good work, Doc, your information you pass along is interesting and timely. Thanks!
This dictionary is excellent. Some terms that had been confusing me are explained quite clearly. Thank you for this thread.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.