Type 1 Diabetes Cured In Dogs

[Northerner]

Researchers from the Universitat Aut?noma de Barcelona report they can cure diabetes in large animals with a single session of gene therapy. Writing in Diabetes, they said the dogs recovered their health and no longer show symptoms of the disease. In some cases, monitoring continued for over four years, with no recurrence of symptoms.

The therapy is minimally invasive and consists of a single session of various injections in the animal's rear legs using simple needles that are commonly used in cosmetic treatments. These injections introduce gene therapy vectors, with a dual objective: to express the insulin gene, on the one hand, and that of glucokinase, on the other. Glucokinase is an enzyme that regulates the uptake of glucose from the blood.

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/type_1_diabetes_cured_dogs-103093

 

[DeusXM]

Now THIS is the sort of stuff that should be funded! Let's hope they find a way to apply these results to people - FAST!

 

[AlisonM]

The day is getting closer. Maybe we'll see a cure in our lifetime.

 

[novorapidboi26]

The more research is done, the better chance of a cure....🙂

 

[redrevis]

I'm confused. How does this gene therapy stop the autoimmunity found in type 1s? I don't understand how this gene therapy works, but it doesn't mention anything at all about autoimmunity, so I can't see how this would be a cure for type 1. From reading the article it sounds like it could be a cure for type two, as it's more about regulation of blood glucose. Please correct me if I've read it wrong. Anyone care to enlighten me if I've got things mixed up?

 

[trophywench]

No you haven't redrevis. Dogabetes is much more akin to T2.

So the T2's win this one. And we become once again the Elite ROFL. A smaller group, but cohesive ...... 🙂

 

[Northerner]

This article gives the full text on what the research involved. Apparently,

To increase glucose removal from blood, skeletal muscle of transgenic mice was engineered both to produce basal levels of insulin and to express the liver enzyme glucokinase.

So it's the muscles themselves producing regulatory insulin.

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/55/6/1546.full

 

[Andy HB]

This article gives the full text on what the research involved. Apparently, So it's the muscles themselves producing regulatory insulin.

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/55/6/1546.full

That jingles a little memory bell for me. I'm sure I read something about this in a recent New Scientist. I've also got a memory that I think went along the lines that the autoimmune response was limited because the muscles were involved .... I'll have to see if I can find it!!

Andy 🙂