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A treatment for type 1 diabetes that involves injecting pig cells into human patients is about to be trialled in Russia.  The researchers say the treatment could provide a much cheaper, more accessible alternative to human cell transplants, but concerns about xeno-transplantation remain an issue.  In people with type 1 diabetes, the islet cells of the pancreas do not produce enough insulin to regulate blood glucose effectively. The standard treatment is insulin injections. Transplants of human islet cells are being carried out, but there is a shortage of donors and the procedure can cost $300,000 per patient. Patients also have...

2006 DEC 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Johns Hopkins scientists have successfully grown large numbers of stem cells taken from adult pigs' healthy heart tissue and used the cells to repair some of the tissue damage done to those organs by lab-induced heart attacks. Pigs' hearts closely resemble those in humans, making them a useful model in such research. Following up on previous studies, Hopkins cardiologists used a thin tube to extract samples of heart tissue no bigger than a grain of rice within hours of the animals' heart attacks, then grew large numbers of cardiac stem cells in the lab...

Transplants of insulin-producing cells from pigs could provide a diabetes cure within a decade, scientists say. A US team has reversed the condition in monkeys by transplanting cell clusters, known as islets, from pig pancreases, a study in Nature Medicine reports. UK teams have cured type 1 diabetes by transplanting human pancreas cells - but donated organs are in short supply, hence the interest in the pig solution. The University of Minnesota hopes to start trials in humans by 2009. The university's researchers argue that animal-to-human transplants may be necessary to make islet transplantation a viable solution for the tens...