giggs
01-30-2007, 11:05 PM
Sounds interesting...
Pig cells in study to fight diabetes
Adam Cresswell, Health editor
30 January 2007
INSULIN-PRODUCING cells taken from pigs will be transplanted into human diabetes patients, in what is claimed as a world-first trial based on Australian technology.
If the pig cells work as hoped, they will manufacture insulin naturally within the patients' bodies, thus reducing the need for them to inject themselves with the hormone, which the body needs to convert sugar intoenergy.
The technique could help to control the swings in blood sugar many diabetic patients experience, and could eventually pave the way for new and better treatments for type 1 diabetes, which is caused when the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas stop working, or fail to produce enough insulin.
It could also offer an advantage over alternative techniques also in development, involving the transplanting of human insulin-producing cells.
Both techniques rely on wrapping the cells in a substance derived from seaweed, called alginate, which allows insulin out but stops the transplanted cells from being destroyed by the recipient's immune system.
The advantage of using cells from pigs is that they would be much more readily available than cells from a human pancreas, the organ from which the insulin-secreting cells are taken.
The two-year study will take place in Russia, because animal-to-human transplants in Australia were halted under a five-year moratorium ordered by the National Health and Medical Research Council in 2004. The study is being conducted by the company that makes the encapsulated pig cells, the ASX-listed Living Cell Technologies.
CEO Paul Tan said the six Russian patients would first be monitored for two months to see how well their diabetes was controlled. They would then receive two transplants of the pig cells, six months apart, and their progress would be monitored for two years.
"You need to do human trials to know how it will behave in humans," Dr Tan said.
Pig cells in study to fight diabetes
Adam Cresswell, Health editor
30 January 2007
INSULIN-PRODUCING cells taken from pigs will be transplanted into human diabetes patients, in what is claimed as a world-first trial based on Australian technology.
If the pig cells work as hoped, they will manufacture insulin naturally within the patients' bodies, thus reducing the need for them to inject themselves with the hormone, which the body needs to convert sugar intoenergy.
The technique could help to control the swings in blood sugar many diabetic patients experience, and could eventually pave the way for new and better treatments for type 1 diabetes, which is caused when the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas stop working, or fail to produce enough insulin.
It could also offer an advantage over alternative techniques also in development, involving the transplanting of human insulin-producing cells.
Both techniques rely on wrapping the cells in a substance derived from seaweed, called alginate, which allows insulin out but stops the transplanted cells from being destroyed by the recipient's immune system.
The advantage of using cells from pigs is that they would be much more readily available than cells from a human pancreas, the organ from which the insulin-secreting cells are taken.
The two-year study will take place in Russia, because animal-to-human transplants in Australia were halted under a five-year moratorium ordered by the National Health and Medical Research Council in 2004. The study is being conducted by the company that makes the encapsulated pig cells, the ASX-listed Living Cell Technologies.
CEO Paul Tan said the six Russian patients would first be monitored for two months to see how well their diabetes was controlled. They would then receive two transplants of the pig cells, six months apart, and their progress would be monitored for two years.
"You need to do human trials to know how it will behave in humans," Dr Tan said.