Stem Cells From The Brain To Possibly Cure Diabetes
Related News: Spinal / Nervous / Brain, Stem Cells and DiabetesThe BBC has a good article on how scientists in the US are looking at a possible method of curing diabetes using stem cells from the brain.
Though the work is obviously no ready for human testing, the results coming from animal studies have shown to be very promising.
Researchers at Stanford University have found a way to coax the immature brain cells to fully develop into insulin producing islet cells that are lacking in diabetes.....
The goal is that this method could eventually lead to uses as curative transplants, the scientists told the journal PLoS Medicine.
Dr Seung Kim and his fellow researchers are working to see if stem cells taken from the brain might work just as well as embryonic stem cells studies as it would avoid some of the issues surrounding the cancer concerns related to stem cell implants.
Dr Kim said: "When you look at islet cells you realise that they resemble neurons."
As evidence to support some of their theories, some insects, like fruit flies, cells that produce insulin and regulate blood sugar actually are neurons.
To find out whether these cells could actually work, Kim's team transplanted them into kidneys in mice where other types of insulin-producing cells have been found to survive before.
When the blood sugar went up in these mice, the transplanted "mature" brain stem cells again released insulin....
Posted on April 26, 2005 06:15 PM