Per-Ola Carlsson, Professor of Medical Cell Biology. Credit score: Mikael Wallerstedt
A totally new manner of treating sort 1 diabetes is being examined at Uppsala College Hospital. Sufferers are being supplied transplants of genetically modified insulin-producing cells and the preliminary outcomes are promising. We put a couple of inquiries to Per-Ola Carlsson, Professor of Medical Cell Biology, who’s main the research.
The research began in December and has already attracted a number of consideration. What makes it so particular?
To discover a healing therapy for diabetes, two elements are wanted. Firstly, it’s important to have a adequate amount of insulin-producing cells to have the ability to deal with many people with sort 1 diabetes. This drawback has truly been solved within the final ten years via a sort of stem cell therapy with insulin-producing cells that’s at the moment present process medical trials.
The remaining drawback has been that because the cells come from one other particular person, the sufferers want lifelong immunosuppressive therapy, which might result in critical side-effects. What now we have completed is to see whether or not we will discover a risk and a technique for transplanting cells between people with out immunosuppressive medication.
You have got developed genetically modified insulin-producing cells which might be hypoimmune, in order that immunosuppressive therapy shouldn’t be required. For the primary time, they’ve been transplanted right into a human. How has it gone?
We need to see if we will transplant between people and get the cells to outlive. Although this research is primarily a security trial, after all we’re taking the chance to see how the cells are doing.
On the finish of the yr, we had simply over 4 weeks of observations and noticed that the same amount of cells remained as once we inserted them. They don’t disappear, they’ve stayed there with their very own steady insulin manufacturing over the course of those weeks. What we might in any other case have anticipated in a transplant between people is that we might have had a rejection course of and would have already got misplaced this cell perform within the first few weeks.
What would be the subsequent stage of your analysis?
We’ll now proceed to watch this over time. Such a research has to hold on for 15 years to indicate that the therapy is secure. It could not take that lengthy to have the ability to say that the cells work and that it is fairly secure, so we cannot wait all that point earlier than we go forward with new research.
The subsequent step is to use this genetic modification to stem cells. That may make it potential to provide large portions of insulin-producing cells with this genetic modification. We might then have a lot of cells that might be utilized in medical trials and may be made right into a pharmaceutical product.
Transplantation therapy for diabetes
For individuals with extreme sort 1 diabetes, transplantation of islets of Langerhans containing insulin-producing cells has been a longtime therapy for over 20 years.
These cells come from the pancreas of a deceased donor and are transplanted right into a affected person with the intention of reaching regular blood sugar management and insulin independence.
As with all different organ and cell transplants, suppression of the recipients immune system has up to now been required to forestall immune rejection of the transplanted cells.
The insulin-producing cells used within the new research are genetically modified to keep away from detection by the immune system, which protects them from each rejection and autoimmune assault.
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Q&A: Transplant therapy for diabetes exhibits promising outcomes (2025, January 17)
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