Starting from human embryonic cells, a team of researchers from Harvard University (USA) has first managed to produce the type and amount of beta cells of human insulin producers necessary for a transplant that allows diabetes to be treated.
Doug Melton, work director, had in mind this objective for 23 years, when his son Sam was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and decided to devote his career to the search for a cure for the disease.Melton believes that the human transplant tests using these cells will be underway in a few years: "We are still at a preclinical phase, far from the finish line," he said.
To date there have been many previous attempts to make different types of beta cells from stem cells, but no other group has produced mature beta cells, the most appropriate for use in patients, he says."The greatest obstacle has been to get the glucose sensitivity of beta cells insulin secretors of beta cells; and that is what our group has done," he said.
At work, published in Cell magazine, the researchers tested the cells produced in the laboratory in three different ways in terms of glucose production in mice, and the results have been adequate, as the researcher recognizes, which adds that currently that currently currentlyThese beta cells derived from stem cells are subjected to tests in animal models, including non -human primates.
For decades, researchers have tried to generate human pancreatic beta cells to be cultivated and, subsequently, were able to produce insulin, explains Elaine Fuchs, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (USA).Now, he points out, "this team seems that they have finally overcome this obstacle and open the door for the discovery of drugs and the use of transplants in diabetes."
The transplant of cells such as a diabetes treatment remains essentially experimental, since it uses corpses cells, requires the use of powerful immunosuppressive drugs and is only available to a very small number of patients.