Scientists can halt diabetes: Experts are closing in on jab-free cure

The achievement – which brings closer the day when type 1 diabetes patients will no longer need daily insulin injections – is marked by the publication of two papers: one in Nature Medicine that covers the tests in mice and the other in Nature Biotechnology that covers the development of the biomaterial.

In tests on mice, they showed that these encapsulated human cells could cure diabetes for up to six months, without provoking an immune response. Further, “We are excited by these results, and are working hard to advance this technology to the clinic”.

During 2014, this same group used different stem cells to create mass produced beta cells that were insulin producing.

“This report is an important step forward, in an animal model, because it shows that there may be a way to overcome one of the major hurdles that have stood in the way of a cure for type 1 diabetes”, said Melton, Harvard’s Xander University Professor and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

Encapsulating islet cells The findings are reported in two studies published in Nature Biotechnology and Nature Medicine.

The human islet cells used for the new research were generated from human stem cells developed by Professor Melton of Harvard.

“It is believed that if implanted beta cells could be shielded from immune attack, and would respond to the body’s own signals for insulin, they would be likely to eliminate most, or even all, the complications of the disease, and would, in effect, serve as a cure”, Colen added.

After creating a library of almost 800 alginate derivatives, the researchers performed several rounds of tests in mice and nonhuman primates. They found triazole-thiomorpholine dioxide (TMTD) the best of the lot as it had a minimal immune response in mice and large animals.

The researchers then implanted human islet cells encapsulated in TMTD in mice, which provided the success for the study. These results lay the groundwork for future human studies using these formulations with the goal of achieving long-term replacement therapy for type 1 diabetes.

In patients suffering from Type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the pancreas, eventually leaving patients without the ability to naturally control blood sugar.

“It’s significant to see a study of this length return such promising results”.

This runs counter to advice given in a recent joint statement of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes and the American Diabetes Association, which says pump therapy is an option “following a trial of multiple daily insulin injection therapy”.

A better diabetes treatment, many researchers believe, would be to replace patients’ destroyed pancreatic islet cells with healthy cells.

According to Daniel Anderson, a Samuel A. Goldblith associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, this new treatment method “has the potential to provide diabetics with a new pancreas that is protected from the immune system, which would allow them to control their blood sugar without taking drugs”.