“If we can figure that out, it will help inform our thinking about what genes to change in our stem cell-derived islets so they could go into any person. Next, the team hope to find a way to genetically engineer stem cells so they aren’t rejected as foreign bodies. Melton anticipated this controversial study to take five years, but it took three times as long. This realisation led to investigating embryonic stem cells and how they could be made into insulin-producing cells, known as ‘beta cells’. Once they’re removed or killed, the adult body has no capacity to make new ones.’’ But we showed in mice that this isn’t true for pancreatic islets. So, if you give blood at a blood drive, your body makes more blood. Blood, for example, is replenished routinely by a blood stem cell. “When we first started, we had to try to figure out how the islets in a person’s pancreas replenished. The idea to use stem cells began almost two decades ago. It’s a new kind of medicine,” Melton said. Instead of injecting insulin, will get cells that will be their own insulin factories. Now it’s 100 years later, and if this works, it’s going to change the medical treatment for people with diabetes. “The first major change in the treatment of type 1 diabetes was probably the discovery of insulin in 1920. Ten years later, Melton’s older daughter was also diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Melton was prompted to shift his research focus to pancreatic islets (where insulin is produced) after his son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at six months old. Through their early-stage clinical trials, Vertex Pharmaceuticals found this combination therapy helped reproduce insulin-producing cells in their first human subject.īehind this therapeutic study is Harvard Stem Cell Institute Co-Director and Xander University Professor, Douglas Melton. Since the immune system rejects these ‘foreign cells’, immunosuppressants are treatments used to lower the activity of the immune system and prevent cell-rejection. Stem cells are the raw matter from which specialised cells are formed replacement therapy uses stem cells to generate functional cells that can replace damaged cells.
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