« Excess Body Fat Can Lead to the Onset of Diabetes | Main | Atkins diabetes surprise »
May 20, 2005
Good news on diabetes research - early but promising
From NewHopeBlog:
Results of a recent study offer new hope for novel treatment options in diabetes. Scientists have successfully modified liver cells to produce insulin that, when transplanted into mice, brought diabetes under control.
Sarah Ferber of the Endocrine Institute in Israel and her colleagues modified adult human liver cells (AHL) to express the pancreatic and duodenal homeobox gene 1 (PDX-1). A quarter of the AHL cells transformed in this manner produced insulin, the researchers report in a paper published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team then transplanted the treated cells into diabetic mice and determined that the insulin-producing AHL cells store the hormone in granules in much the same way that regular beta-cells in the pancreas do.
Posted by Diabetologica at May 20, 2005 11:52 PM