Significant progress has been registered in the effort of finding a cure for diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic disease, caused by the immune system destroying cells which control levels of blood sugar. A team of scientists from Harvard University used stem cells to produce hundreds of millions of cells, in a laboratory. The first tests done on mice revealed that the cells could treat the disease. Experts in the field described the progress as a potentially major medical breakthrough. Beta cells are the ones responsible for the production of insulin, in order to bring down levels of sugar in the blood. However, when the immune system refuses to accept these beta cells, it begins destroying them. This process causes diabetes, a disease that can turn out to be fatal if not treated and supervised properly. Type 1 diabetes is different from the type 2 diabetes. The latter is usually caused by bad eating habits, lack of physical exercise and excessive stress.
The Harvard University team working on the cure is led by professor Doug Melton, whose son and daughter both developed type 1 diabetes. His research is trying to find a way of replacing the missing beta cell. In order to do so, he uses stem cell technology. He found an innovating method for transforming embryonic cells in functioning beta cells. His research, published in the Cell journal showed how the beta cells produced in the laboratory could aid in the production of insulin and control the levels of blood sugar for a few months. He declared: “It was gratifying to know that we could do something that we always thought was possible. We are now just one pre-clinical step away from the finish line”. However, more research is needed in order to clearly establish whether and how the human organism would react to the injection of beta cells. Once introduced into an organism, the immune system would still fight against them, and in the end it would destroy them.
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A member of the JDRF charity, that funded the study said the following: “This isn’t a cure, it is a great move along the path. It is a tremendous step forward. Replacing the cells that produce insulin as well as turning off the immune response that causes type 1 diabetes is the long-term goal”. Professor Chris Mason, a scientist from University College London is a stem cell specialist. He said: “A scientific breakthrough is to make functional cells that cure a diabetic mouse, but a major medical breakthrough is to be able to manufacture at large enough scale the functional cells to treat all diabetics. This research is therefore a scientific and potentially a major medical breakthrough. If this scalable technology is proven to work in both the clinic and in the manufacturing facility, the impact on the treatment of diabetes will be a medical game-changer on par with antibiotics and bacterial infections”.