Cells from a pig transplanted into a diabetic man from New Zealand are still producing insulin nearly 10 years later, prompting a biotechnology company to plan research to see if others could benefit.
The case, profiled in a scientific journal issued on Friday, may pave the way for a cure for diabetes, said Bob Elliot, medical director of Australia's Living Cell Technologies.
The man, now 41, suffers from type 1 diabetes, when cells in the pancreas do not produce insulin -- a hormone needed to store or use sugar. This results in abnormally high sugar levels in the blood, or diabetes, which needs to be corrected with daily insulin injections.
The pig cells were injected into the man's abdomen in 1996, which helped reduce his insulin requirements by 34 percent for a year, researchers from the biotech firm wrote in a paper published in the latest issue of the journal Xenotransplantation....
Whole article: "www.int.iol.co.za":[ http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=nw20070330124106660C803648]
New Direction For Pancreas Cell Regeneration -
Replacing faulty or missing cells with new insulin-making cells has been the object of diabetes research for the last decade (5.4.2007)
Gene therapy prevents the onset of diabetic symptoms in mice -
Using state-of-the-art gene therapy techniques, University of Pittsburgh investigators have successfully prevented the onset of elevated blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, in diabetes-prone mice by inserting a gene encoding for a cytokine -- a protein that stimulates or inhibits the proliferation or function of immune cells -- into their insulin-producing cells (26.6.2006)
Trial Success for Diabetic Nerve Therapy -
A potentially ground-breaking treatment for nerve damage caused by diabetes has shown promising results in preclinical and early patient trials (15.6.2006)
