For years now, one of the tantalizing
possibilites for stem cell researchers has been using the technique to
provide a treatment for diabetes. That promise took a large step forward
in February when researchers announced they had managed to reverse diabetes
in mice using stem cells.
Stem cells are “master” cells
that direct the creation of other cells in the body. In this case researchers
isolated stem cells from the pancreases of mice, and transferred them
into diabetic mice.
The mice suffered from a condition
similar to Type-I diabetes (also called juvenile diabetes) in humans.
In this form of diabetes, which afflicts about 1.6 million Americans,
the body develops an immune response to islet cells that produce insulin
and attack the cells, interfering with the body’s ability to control levels
of blood sugar. Currently Type-I diabetes is usually treated with insulin
injections (another technology developed thanks to extensive animal experimentation).
When the pancreas stem cells
were injected in the mice, they spurred the creation of islets which produce
insulin in the mice, reversing their diabetic condition.
The next step will be seeing
if the phenomenon can be repeated in human beings, and the researchers
are confident that this will be replicable. “In preliminary experiments
it appears that we can take human pancreatic duct cells and show that
they can differentiate into islet cells as well,” said Dr. Desmond Schatz,
a diabetes expert who worked on the stem cell research at the University
of Florida in Gainesville.
Reference:
U.S. team reversed mouse diabetes with stem cells. Reuters, February
28, 2000.