Diabetes Research Breaks the Mold Away from Stem Cells to Pancreas Cells

According to the L.A. Times, researchers have found a way to produce insulin from pancreas cells, creating a genetic transformation.

Diabetes researchers have previously looked to stem cell research for growing new, transplantable tissue for diabetics. Today an injection of a new biologic alchemy promises to turn one type of pancreatic cell into an efficient insulin-secreting cell. Harvard University Studies on diabetic mice show the creation of a "genetic transformation," which is thought to also be a precursor for treatment of other diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and heart attack victims needing cardiac muscle repair. Karen Kaplan, writing for the L.A. Times compares the procedure to "upload[ing] a new operating system onto a computer to change a PC into a Mac." The Co-Director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute's, Doug Melton, says:

We were able to flip the cell from one state into another," Melton said, adding that the approach should be useful in treating disorders in "any case where there's a cell type missing and there are neighboring cells that are still healthy.

The procedure, known as "direct reprogramming," is faster and more efficient than methods using stem cells. It is also safer:

... Patricia Kilian, who heads regeneration therapy research at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, said the technique would sidestep some of the complexities inherent in the highly touted but controversial research involving embryonic stem cells.

You wouldn't be transplanting cells, so you wouldn't be dealing with immune issues," she said, calling the research remarkable and "very unexpected.

The research is two to five years away from human trials. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, approximately 13 million people in the United States have Diabetes.

University of Michigan Health System

Childhood obesity will likely result in an epidemic of type 2 diabetes among young adults.

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