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PETBioNewsNewsInsulin-producing cells from cord blood

BioNews

Insulin-producing cells from cord blood

Published 9 June 2009 posted in News and appears in BioNews 410

Author

Ailsa Stevens

Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
CC BY 4.0
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false-coloured cryogenic scanning electron micrograph).

A group of US and British researchers is reported to be the first to have successfully converted stem cells obtained from the umbilical cords of newborns into insulin-producing cells. The research, published in the June 2007 issue of the journal Cell Proliferation, could eventually lead to a...

A group of US and British researchers is reported to be the first to have successfully converted stem cells obtained from the umbilical cords of newborns into insulin-producing cells.


The research, published in the June 2007 issue of the journal Cell Proliferation, could eventually lead to a cure for type 1 diabetes and highlights that umbilical cord blood stem cells, which in future could be stored from birth, could provide an ethically favourable alternative to stem cells harvested from human embryos.


'This discovery tells us that we have the potential to produce insulin from adult stem cells to help people with diabetes,' said Dr Randall Urban of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who lead the study, which has been heralded as baseline work for future research into whole organ regeneration.


Despite overall optimism, Dr Urban stresses that the research is at a very early stage, 'It doesn't prove that we're going to be able to do this in people - it's just the first step up the rung of the ladder'.


In a laboratory dish, the researchers used a complex cocktail of signals, normally produced by the embryonic mouse pancreas, to instruct the human stem cells to develop, or 'differentiate', into islet-like cells similar to those which produce insulin in the human pancreas.


People affected by type 1 diabetes, whose insulin-producing cells have been destroyed, have to inject themselves several times daily with insulin to maintain normal glucose levels in their blood. It is hoped that the transplantation of working copies of the islet-like cells, derived from human stem cells, could in future lead to a cure for these patients.


However, some experts are more sceptical, 'In the past, these claims have been rather unconvincing', said Dr Rudolph Jaenisch , an expert from the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a telephone interview with Reuters. His view is that previous attempts to differentiate insulin-producing cells from human stem cells have ultimately proved fruitless: either yielding only small amounts of insulin or in fact later proving to be mistaken.


The US Company Geron recently announced it had successfully differentiated human embryonic stem cells into insulin-producing cells.

Related Articles

Image by K Hardy via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human embryo at the blastocyst stage (about six days after fertilisation) 'hatching' out of the zona pellucida.
CC BY 4.0
Image by K Hardy via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human embryo at the blastocyst stage (about six days after fertilisation) 'hatching' out of the zona pellucida.
News
9 June 2009 • 2 minutes read

Stem cell hope for type 1 diabetes

by Ailsa Stevens

The US Geron Corporation has reported pioneering steps towards a new treatment for type 1 diabetes, having successfully converted human embryonic stem (ES)cells into insulin-producing cells. The research, published in the journal Stem Cells, found that islet-like clusters of cells, similar to those normally found in...

Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false colour).
CC BY 4.0
Image by Sílvia Ferreira, Cristina Lopo and Eileen Gentleman via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a single human stem cell embedded within a porous hydrogel matrix (false-coloured cryogenic scanning electron micrograph).
News
9 June 2009 • 2 minutes read

Bone marrow transplant hope for diabetes

by Heidi Nicholl

A research team comprised of scientists in Brazil and Northwestern University, Chicago has shown that they were able to reverse or halt the progression of Type 1 diabetes in newly diagnosed individuals using injections of the patients' own stem cells. Of the fifteen volunteers treated, all but...

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