In February, the BBC reported that a team at Japan’s Kyoto University Hospital had succeeded in transplanting islet cells from a healthy woman into her 27-year-old diabetic daughter.
Islet cell transplantations have been performed before, but always from dead organ donors, which created a number of problems since the islet cells were frequently damaged after the death of the donor. And in countries as Japan, dead organ donors are extremely rare.
As the BBC notes, this could be an effective treatment for Type 1 diabetes, and we have animal research to thank for this advance.
That islet transplantation might be used to treat diabetes was first established by Dr. Paul Lacy who used a rat model in which he made the experimental rats suffer from diabetes and then transplanted islet cells from healthy rats. The rats were effectively cured of their diabetes.
How important was this animal research? Dr. James Shapiro was the lead surgeon on the team that transplanted the islet cells. In an interview, he said that a key at DiabetesStation.Com, Shapiro noted that animal research was instrumental in helping researchers understand where the islet cells should be transplanted to for maximum effectiveness,
The idea to use the liver was not mine. Experiments in rats, in large animals, and eventually in people all suggested that the liver was about the only site where islets could take well and work in people.
Sort of odd how that could happen if animals are too different from human beings for animal research to be applicable to human health problems.
Sources:
Living donor diabetes transplant. The BBC, February 4, 2005.
Islet Cell Transplant. Dr. James Shapiro, April 13, 2003.
World-first living donor islet cell transplant a success. Press release, University of Alberta, February 3, 2005.