World first type 1 reversal

Amity Island

Amity Island

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
A 25-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes started producing her own insulin less than three months after receiving a transplant of reprogrammed stem cells1. She is the first person with the disease to be treated using cells that were extracted from her own body.


www.nature.com

Stem cells reverse woman’s diabetes — a world first

She is the first person with type 1 diabetes to receive this kind of transplant.
www.nature.com www.nature.com
 
But with immuno-suppressants, which have nasty side effects. I’m interested but not getting excited yet. The cells will need to be hidden from our immune systems else they’ll just kill them all off again.
 
This I have to have to say is an interesting story but I'm not getting my hopes up just yet...let's see what happens to this woman before we can call this a major breakthrough in the fight against T1D shall we?
 
Inka said:
But with immuno-suppressants, which have nasty side effects. I’m interested but not getting excited yet. The cells will need to be hidden from our immune systems else they’ll just kill them all off again.
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This could soon be that moment when someone says you can stop taking insulin now.

Yes, I too wonder if the body will just continue to kill off any new cells.
 
Amity Island said:
This could soon be that moment when someone says you can stop taking insulin now.

Yes, I too wonder if the body will just continue to kill off any new cells.
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Imagine! That would be such a weight lifted.
If the stem cells are from our own bodies, then our immune system will attack them again. It looks like they chose this lady because she’s already on immuno-suppressants.

I remember the story from China about the Type 2 on insulin they cured. I think we discussed the extra problems with Type 1 then. Either the cells would have to be ‘invisible’ to the immune system, or encased in something that stops the immune attack but still allows nutrients in. I also wonder how long these cells would live in the abdomen.
 
It’ll be interesting to see if these stem-cell therapies last longer than islet cell transplantations. I think insulin independence following transplant tends to last only around 5 years in half of cases, with top-up insulin needed thereafter?
 
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I remember Richard Lane had islet cell transplants and his lasted roughly 5 years - all documented in Balance at the time.
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
It’ll be interesting to see if these stem-cell therapies last longer than islet cell transplantations. I think insulin independence following transplant tends to last only around 5 years in half of cases, with top-up insulin needed thereafter?
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Yes, exactly. I think that’s part of the reason why they won’t go with autologous stem cells. It wouldn’t be just a one off expense.
 
Issue is if this is so tricky to do, they won't roll it out wider unless it really works and can be cost effective. Very interesting indeed and progress.
 
It does mention immuno-suppressants in that @csjjpm:

“Researchers added: “The safety profile of the treatment is generally consistent with the immunosuppressive regimen used in the study, the infusion procedure, and complications from long-standing diabetes.” “

Vertex hope to encapsulate islets in the future so that immuno-suppressants won’t be needed, but this is something that has been worked on for years due to the fact the islets needprotecting but nutrients need to get to them.

The patient in the Chinese study, which I believe is a separate study, was already taking immune-suppressants.
 
Whether it is relevant of not to this treatment I've read that immunosuppressents are not necessary for life but in some cases could be only taken for 3,6 or 12 months until the body no longer rejects the alien cells/object.
 
I’m not a medical person @csjjpm but I do know people who’ve had organ transplants and they’ve taken immunosuppressants for many years.

In addition, with Type 1 there’s the added problem of auto-immunity - the body attacking it’s own beta cells - so even if they somehow ‘blended in’ (and I’ve never heard of that happening) they’d still be targeted by our immune system.
 
I'm not a scientist either 🙂 so I guess there are people smarter than me who have thought about this but..... what if?

Stem cells come from your blood or bone marrow, reducing the dependency on immunosuppressants (probably need for less time after the grafting procedure). Instead of using a generic stem cell you take each person's stem cells, produce the islet cells and graft them in.

Of course the issue will be - will the body attack recognise your B-Cells as bad again and attack them? or will it have forgotten.

This all sounds easy when you google it and a.) it won't be easy & b.) it would be very expensive

Time will tell. My two sons are now both on hybrid loop, the 2nd son just this week and it has made a massive difference in just a few days.
 
Well, yes, that’s the dream - engineered beta cells that are native to your own body so won’t be rejected 🙂 I’ve had Type 1 30 years and stem cells were mentioned very early on. If it could be done (non-‘foreign’ stem cells), they’d still need to be disguised or encapsulated to protect them from the auto-immune attack.

I had my antibodies tested around 25yrs after diagnosis, and I still have them - sitting there waiting to attack any new beta cells:( Even without remaining antibodies (some people don’t have any after some years), the immune system itself remembers - just like it remembers viruses that it has previously attacked.

Other cure options are: retraining the immune system to not attack our beta cells (hard); encouraging any remaining beta cells to reproduce (tricky, and also they’d be targeted again, so there’d have to be some combination of cures; getting other pancreatic cells to produce insulin, eg the alpha cells in the pancreas, in the hope they’d be different enough not to be attacked by the immune system (but that would be hard because it might be the insulin itself that alerts the immune system).

I used to get excited by potential cures, but after all these years I’ve seen too many burn out in a flash and come to nothing. There will be a cure, but I’m saving my excitement for when it actually happens, and with no nasty side effects, just a nice, straight, simple cure. That will be a wonderful day 🙂
 
Inka said:
Other cure options are: retraining the immune system to not attack our beta cells (hard); encouraging any remaining beta cells to reproduce (tricky, and also they’d be targeted again, so there’d have to be some combination of cures; getting other pancreatic cells to produce insulin, eg the alpha cells in the pancreas, in the hope they’d be different enough not to be attacked by the immune system (but that would be hard because it might be the insulin itself that alerts the immune system).
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I seem to remember there being another idea seriously proposed: create a vaccine to train your immune system to attack the specific antibodies responsible for attacking the beta cells. (Also hard, and surely much too convoluted to be successful.) Most of these approaches are individual so surely vastly too expensive to be very useful, though maybe they could (one day) be automated in some way.
 
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