Another step towards a cure?

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Inka

Inka

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I found this very interesting. They’ve managed to remove the parts of the beta cells that trigger the auto-immune attack. I’ve been waiting for this for years and it sounds potentially promising. This would mean no immunosuppressants, which would be a huge step forward as those can have some nasty side effects. Human trials to start soon:

jdrf.org.uk

Primate with type 1 diabetes becomes insulin-independent after receiving gene-edited cells without immunosuppression | JDRF

A transplant of pancreatic islets from genetically edited stem cells has allowed a primate with type 1 to make its own insulin again.
jdrf.org.uk jdrf.org.uk

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Don't want to sound pessimistic as not that type of person, but all to often these stories appear then nowt comes of it, so so many similar trials over last few decades I'm afraid.

Still we can hope.
 
I know what you mean @nonethewiser It does get a bit wearing with all the ‘cure in 5 years’ stories. I liked this one though as it wasn’t promising an immediate cure, just a step towards it. Also, no mice!
 
I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but perhaps now the big pharmaceutical companies can make their money selling products to the diet industry they might let us have the cure they have been suppressing at last
 
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Inka said:
I found this very interesting. They’ve managed to remove the parts of the beta cells that trigger the auto-immune attack. I’ve been waiting for this for years and it sounds potentially promising. This would mean no immunosuppressants, which would be a huge step forward as those can have some nasty side effects. Human trials to start soon:
Click to expand...
Thanks, really interesting but at first I didn't understand how they will run clinical trials. In short they're transplanting islet cells from other monkeys that have been made non-immunogenic and won't be rejected. Fine but for humans where are these cells coming from? There are no ready sources of pancreas cells that can be engineered as far as I know.

Closest we have to a future scalable therapeutic are reprogrammed stem cells. These can be made non-immunogenic and programmed into beta-cells. Then I read that the company Sana were involved in the above study and they are trying to own the non-immunogenic stem cells that can be used as source cells and now it makes sense.
Note to self - buy stock in Sana....
 
Yes, it’s just one step @Jasmin2000 Others are working on ways to get beta cells, eg grow them from stem cells, reprogramme our alpha cells to make insulin, encourage any remaining beta cells in the person with T1 to reproduce, etc.

What I’ve been reading lately has been going on about how hard it is to stop the immune attack and/or the difficulties of encapsulation, so to see this was cheering. If it works, it seems an obvious answer.
 
Inka said:
Yes, it’s just one step @Jasmin2000 Others are working on ways to get beta cells, eg grow them from stem cells, reprogramme our alpha cells to make insulin, encourage any remaining beta cells in the person with T1 to reproduce, etc.
Click to expand...
Yes that's what Sana are doing (mentioned above), as well as Viacyte, Astellas and others. The big hurdles are the costs to get the therapy to market and the scalability of the solution.

Inka said:
What I’ve been reading lately has been going on about how hard it is to stop the immune attack and/or the difficulties of encapsulation, so to see this was cheering. If it works, it seems an obvious answer.
Click to expand...
Viacyte enacapsulated reprogrammed stem cells as they are allogenic and hence immunogenic. But allogenic means mass production and cheap. I believe they will partner with Sana or similar company to make non-immunogenic versions of their stem cells, but they need to move soon or they'll have to repeat all the clinical trials with the new cells (hence stock in Sana will rocket soon). Then the question is why encapsulate at all?

Reprogramming alpha cells in the human is way too complicated and expensive - and probably redundant if the above solution works. In any case the new cells would still be killed off by the memory activity of the immune system.
 
Re the alpha cells being targeted by the immune system, do you mean because they’re producing insulin? I thought they weren’t targeted by the auto-immune attack?

I was excited about Viacyte, but then there was some issue, wasn’t there? Dredging my rubbish memory here, but I thought there was. Or maybe I’m getting muddled with another encapsulation company.
 
Inka said:
Re the alpha cells being targeted by the immune system, do you mean because they’re producing insulin? I thought they weren’t targeted by the auto-immune attack?
Click to expand...
In T1 the autoimmune attack is directed to surface proteins on the beta-cells, and one of these is the insulin precursor pre-pro-insulin, so alphas making the same protein would be targeted by the same T cells. But they won't simply be alphas making insulin, they will be new betas, because only betas have their own BG monitoring system and insulin manufacturing and secretion response.

Inka said:
I was excited about Viacyte, but then there was some issue, wasn’t there? Dredging my rubbish memory here, but I thought there was. Or maybe I’m getting muddled with another encapsulation company.
Click to expand...
I remember some controversy regarding the fact that their beta-cells were derived from embryonic stem cells (ESC), and then there were ownership issues and ethics committees, not to mention the pro-life brigade who wanted all ESCs to be designated as living people. Anyways, they still seem to be using them.

It's highly likely that they have teamed up with academics/companies who are making glucose-reposive beta cells from iPSC (stem cells made from normal cells), like Doug Melton from Harvard, and will catch up on their ESC versions before they hit the market.
 
What gets me thinking is where do they find a T1 “crab-eating macaque?” And. If they make them T1 what is the actual “auto immune response trigger?
Lol puts me in mind of the reboot fiction sci fi “planet of the apes.” Some genius came up with a gas that could cure dementia? Giving an exploited chimpanzee tactical reasoning in guerrilla warfare.
 
Satan’s little helper said:
What gets me thinking is where do they find a T1 “crab-eating macaque?” And. If they make them T1 what is the actual “auto immune response trigger?
Lol puts me in mind of the reboot fiction sci fi “planet of the apes.” Some genius came up with a gas that could cure dementia? Giving an exploited chimpanzee tactical reasoning in guerrilla warfare.
Click to expand...
Pancreas abnormalities in wild mammals are random and in mammals bred for research (primates, rodents, dogs), then a T1 can be identified by routine BG testing and the individuals with the 'best' T1 profile are inbred to create a stable variant. Primates and needed for non-human research and macaques are well known for developing T1 - here's a nice review.
The auto-immune trigger will most likely be insulin, but this can be verified before a breeding program is initiated.

No Macaque versions of Ceasar appearing soon, but in the world of human-animal chimeras, where pigs can grow human organs for transplant, I asked a leading scientist if there are plans to grow human brains in pigs for dementia patients - he showed me his copy of Animal Farm 😱
 
Martin62 said:
I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but perhaps now the big pharmaceutical companies can make their money selling products to the diet industry they might let us have the cure they have been suppressing at last
Click to expand...
It's only ever about the money 🙂 it's just business, mind I'm still very thankful for what we do have.
 
Satan’s little helper said:
What gets me thinking is where do they find a T1 “crab-eating macaque?” And. If they make them T1 what is the actual “auto immune response trigger?
Lol puts me in mind of the reboot fiction sci fi “planet of the apes.” Some genius came up with a gas that could cure dementia? Giving an exploited chimpanzee tactical reasoning in guerrilla warfare.
Click to expand...
Don't you mean gorilla warfare?!!
 
Inka said:
I know what you mean @nonethewiser It does get a bit wearing with all the ‘cure in 5 years’ stories. I liked this one though as it wasn’t promising an immediate cure, just a step towards it. Also, no mice!
Click to expand...

Suppose it does make a change not involving mice.
 
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