It may take guts to cure diabetes

[Northerner]

By switching off a single gene, scientists at Columbia University's Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center have converted human gastrointestinal cells into insulin-producing cells, demonstrating in principle that a drug could retrain cells inside a person's GI tract to produce insulin.

The new research was reported today in the online issue of the journal Nature Communications.

"People have been talking about turning one cell into another for a long time, but until now we hadn't gotten to the point of creating a fully functional insulin-producing cell by the manipulation of a single target," said the study's senior author, Domenico Accili, MD, the Russell Berrie Foundation Professor of Diabetes (in Medicine) at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).

The finding raises the possibility that cells lost in type 1 diabetes may be more easily replaced through the reeducation of existing cells than through the transplantation of new cells created from embryonic or adult stem cells.

http://www.sciencecodex.com/it_may_take_guts_to_cure_diabetes-136597

 

[KookyCat]

Interesting, I wish they'd stay away from the intestines though, mine are unhappy enough without doing another job as well. Perhaps I could have mine in my appendix, it's not doing anything else!

Just a thought though, what would stop Alfie immune system eating the modified cells, unless of course on the outside they appear like normal intestinal cells?

 

[trophywench]

Good point Kooky - AND it also occurs to me that the reason always given for us not to be able to have an insulin 'pill'/capsule, is that our gastric juices destroy insulin.

So, is it actually potentially much good to anyone, doing this ?

 

[KookyCat]

Good point Kooky - AND it also occurs to me that the reason always given for us not to be able to have an insulin 'pill'/capsule, is that our gastric juices destroy insulin.

So, is it actually potentially much good to anyone, doing this ?

Maybe if it bypasses the stomach and still has the cell markers of an intestinal cell, and it's just the internal cell mechanisms that are modified the immune system would ignore it because they're specific the external membrane, like a lock and key....my brain is intrigued, I'm going in to see if I can find out more....I think I've overdone the 90% cocoa solids I'm a bit jittery 😉