Embryo breakthrough could mean new diabetes therapy
13 Jun 2007 by Evoluted New Media
Researchers are hopeful that a breakthrough in the understanding of how embryos create the cells which secrete insulin could lead to new therapies for diabetes.
Researchers are hopeful that a breakthrough in the understanding of how embryos create the cells which secrete insulin could lead to new therapies for diabetes.
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| Beta cells within the pancreas, which produce insulin (shown) could be regulated in the embryo by glucose |
Professor Guy Rutter, from the Division of Medicine at Imperial College and one of the authors of the paper, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, said: “We hope that by demonstrating that an 'extrinsic' factor like glucose can regulate the way in which insulin secreting cells develop we may eventually be able to reverse defects in the growth of these cells in patients with diabetes. Research like ours is opening up whole new sets of targets for drug treatments.”
The scientists, from Imperial College London and an INSERM Unit at Necker Hospital, Paris, also hope that understanding how to switch on the gene that produces beta cells could eventually enable researchers to create these cells from stem cells. They could then transplant beta cells into patients with type 1 diabetes – the form of the disease where the immune system attacks patients’ beta cells.
