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Harvard team "cures" diabetes in mice with stem cells; a similar clinical trial is lauched by others

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bookbah

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I do not have diabetes
In a world-first, Harvard University's Doug Melton reported in a top journal "curing" diabetes in mice using both embryonic and adult stem cells, meticulously creating perfect beta cells that respond repeatedly to insulin. A similar approach by a different and unrelated group, involving stem cells that were differentiated to slightly less mature beta cells than Melton's before implant, is at the heart of a clinical trial in Type 1 patients. http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/articles/2014/10/embryonic-stem-cells-trial-diabetes
 
Amazing. They're starting human trials in a few weeks. I'm very confident that there will be a cure, or a closed loop system, available to us in the next 5 years or so.
 
Hello
Might be a daft question, but won't our antibodies just kill them off again?
 
Emmotha said:
Hello
Might be a daft question, but won't our antibodies just kill them off again?
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They say that they're planning to put the cells in a capsule that blocks immune cells from entering. Doesn't mention whether this capsule has been invented yet!
 
SamJB said:
They say that they're planning to put the cells in a capsule that blocks immune cells from entering. Doesn't mention whether this capsule has been invented yet!
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Yeah I read it needs to go in a capsule which they haven't even started to develop!


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daniT1D said:
Yeah I read it needs to go in a capsule which they haven't even started to develop!


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Ah. Slight stumbling block there. Sounds like the hard bit has been done. I suppose the could put it into a porous capsule, with holes smaller than a white blood cell. Who knows!?
 
daniT1D said:
I also loved the quote "4 months after transplant only 1 of the 6 mice had died" :O


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Oh my god!

I guess even if your immune system kills them, you can have another implant! Even if that's every year, I'd go for one procedure per year instead of X insulin injections per day
 
SamJB said:
They say that they're planning to put the cells in a capsule that blocks immune cells from entering. Doesn't mention whether this capsule has been invented yet!
Click to expand...
But Sam, wouldn't this mean immunosuppressants for life? I'd prefer insulin to that.
 
LucySW said:
But Sam, wouldn't this mean immunosuppressants for life? I'd prefer insulin to that.
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Don't think so cos if they're encapsulated I don't think you need immunosuppressants. Or am I wrong?
 
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