More On Brain Stem Cells As Possible Cure For Diabetes
Related News: Stem Cells and DiabetesWired has a good followup article regarding the current research being done at Stanford University regarding neurons from fetal brains that are coaxed into to become cells that produce insulin.
Granted this is more or less the same information we discussed before, but its a bit more detailed in this article. If you are looking for information regarding stem cell research and diabetes, like this is a good resource for solutions on the horizon.
However, the one issue that likely will be seen as contentious is that Seung Kim who authored the paper on this research, indicates that the insulin-producing cells are derived from embryonic stem cells.....
While neural cells are not contaminated with mouse cells as with other stem cell lines, these cells do fall into an ethical gray area since the neural cells Kim used came from voluntarily aborted fetuses. Researchers are working on ways to obtain the cells from living people, Kim said, which could eliminate ethical issues.
Kim has predicted that he may be able to coax neural cells into becoming islet cells because the two types of cells are similar in several ways. For example, neurons change their electrical properties to send signals, while islet cells change their electrical properties to release insulin.
Posted on April 27, 2005 03:16 PM