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Researchers have used injections of patients' own stem cells to reverse the course of type 1 diabetes, reports a research team from the University of São Paulo in Brazil and Northwestern University in Chicago...
...research team, led by Dr. Julio Voltarelli of the University of Sao Paulo, is the first to successfully treat type 1 diabetes patients with their own stem cells. The group first reported its initial achievement in 2007, with 15 type 1 diabetes patients who received their own stem cells and no longer needed insulin to control their blood sugar levels. In the new study, a follow-up of their previous work, Voltarelli and his colleagues detailed the same success with an additional eight patients, and also confirmed that in the majority of them, the stem cell transplant...
...beta cells, and glucose levels will start to climb. Researchers believe that the trigger for this attack lies somewhere within the immune cells, so one possible treatment for the disease may be to wipe out the entire existing immune system and replace it with a fresh one, derived from stem cells without this destructive trait. (See pictures from an X-Ray studio...
That's the strategy that Voltarelli's team tested. First, they carefully extracted a population of immune stem cells from the bone marrow of each diabetes patient. Then each person was treated with radiation, similar to the regimen that cancer patients receive, in order to destroy the immune system. Afterward, each patient received his own stem cells back by injection. The scientists traced blood levels of a protein, C-peptide, that beta cells produce, in order to confirm that whatever remaining beta cells the patient had were now able to grow again and repopulate the pancreas - and produce insulin. Sure...
...with the University planning to temporarily house the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in its existing Cambridge campus, residents have come to question the University’s commitment to developing the neighborhood, saying they feel jilted by Harvard’s change of focus...