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Posted on Sep 18, 2006, 7 a.m.
By Bill Freeman
Cells transplanted six months ago from pigs into diabetic monkeys are alive and producing insulin -- without the need for immune-suppressing drugs, a biotech company announces today. The research could be an early step toward a cure for diabetes, diabetes experts say.
Cells transplanted six months ago from pigs into diabetic monkeys are alive and producing insulin -- without the need for immune-suppressing drugs, a biotech company announces today.
The research could be an early step toward a cure for diabetes, diabetes experts say.
MicroIslet, based in San Diego, says it has developed a way to encapsulate cells taken from pigs in a material so that it is not recognized by the body as foreign material and then attacked by the immune system. The transplant recipients were seven rhesus monkeys whose own pancreatic islets (clusters of endocrine cells that contain the cells that produce insulin) were destroyed. They now require about half the insulin they needed before the transplant, says company president James Gavin, a professor of medicine at Emory University.
Nathaniel Clark, vice president of clinical affairs of the American Diabetes Association, who has not seen the study and has no association with the company, says the new technology could be a big step forward but is not yet a cure.
"If there's evidence that rejection is not occurring, despite no immune suppression, that's promising and potentially important for the future," Clark says.
If the science can be developed to a point at which the animals no longer need insulin injections, "then potentially, this could be a very important finding."
Efforts to transplant pancreatic islets into patients with diabetes have had mixed success. Pancreatic cells from cadavers are in short supply, and transplant recipients must take immune-suppressing drugs, which can cause serious side effects, for the rest of their lives.
"For me, any approach that involves chronic use of immune-suppressing drugs is not a winner," Gavin says. "You've simply substituted one chronic problem with a different chronic problem."
By using cells taken from pigs raised under sterile conditions, the problem of supply shortages can be overcome, he says, and the method used, the infusion of the cells into the peritoneum, the membrane lining the abdominal region, is not a major surgical procedure.
The company is continuing research toward human clinical trials. The transplanted islet cells have been functioning in the monkeys for "six months and counting," Gavin says. "We don't know how long this will persist."
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