Folks, fresh off todays newswires...All the best Steve.
The original can be found here..
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 89,00.html
SCIENTISTS have discovered a way to make cells found in the pancreas turn into insulin producers, offering hope of a breakthrough treatment for people with type 1 diabetes.
The research is a collaboration by institutions across Europe and the US.
It shows mice with chemically induced diabetes could be cured of the condition through the manipulation of a single gene (Pax4).
Commenting on the findings, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation research development manager Dorota Pawlak said further work was needed to ensure the technique could be replicated in humans but the discovery was otherwise "extremely promising".
"Imagine this scenario. That we could be capable of turning on one gene, which can then change ... progenitor cells, which already exist in the human pancreas, and turn them into functional beta cells," Dr Pawlak said.
"We don't have to do a transplant.
"We'd be using something which exists already in the individual who has this condition ... reprogramming them."
It is beta cells located in the pancreas that, in a healthy person, produce the insulin needed to regulate the body's blood sugar levels.
However, in a person with type 1 diabetes the immune system mistakes these beta cells for an invading organism and it goes to work killing them off. Finding the gene which -- in mice at least -- could prompt the creation of new beta cells was a step towards a "cure" for the condition, Dr Pawlak said.
There is a hurdle in translating the technique to humans.
"While we are growing new beta cells in humans we would also have to work on the ability to stop the immune system from continuously killing them off," Dr Pawlak said.
"But if we could stop that at the same time then those two strains of medical therapy could really lead to a cure."
The original can be found here..
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 89,00.html
SCIENTISTS have discovered a way to make cells found in the pancreas turn into insulin producers, offering hope of a breakthrough treatment for people with type 1 diabetes.
The research is a collaboration by institutions across Europe and the US.
It shows mice with chemically induced diabetes could be cured of the condition through the manipulation of a single gene (Pax4).
Commenting on the findings, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation research development manager Dorota Pawlak said further work was needed to ensure the technique could be replicated in humans but the discovery was otherwise "extremely promising".
"Imagine this scenario. That we could be capable of turning on one gene, which can then change ... progenitor cells, which already exist in the human pancreas, and turn them into functional beta cells," Dr Pawlak said.
"We don't have to do a transplant.
"We'd be using something which exists already in the individual who has this condition ... reprogramming them."
It is beta cells located in the pancreas that, in a healthy person, produce the insulin needed to regulate the body's blood sugar levels.
However, in a person with type 1 diabetes the immune system mistakes these beta cells for an invading organism and it goes to work killing them off. Finding the gene which -- in mice at least -- could prompt the creation of new beta cells was a step towards a "cure" for the condition, Dr Pawlak said.
There is a hurdle in translating the technique to humans.
"While we are growing new beta cells in humans we would also have to work on the ability to stop the immune system from continuously killing them off," Dr Pawlak said.
"But if we could stop that at the same time then those two strains of medical therapy could really lead to a cure."
