Encapsulated pancreatic cells can help in treatment of diabetes

 

Diabetic patients suffering from Type 1 diabetes, have a defective pancreas which is attacked by the immune system. This leads to loss of natural blood sugar control in the patients. Continuous daily monitoring and injecting insulin is a big task for many patients with diabetes.

 

Researchers have now come up with new encapsulated pancreatic cells that offer a new hope to patients with diabetes. The treatment is believed to replace the damaged pancreatic cells with new healthy cells, which can work normally. The only issue with this approach was the attack of immune system of the patients to the transplanted cells. To tackle the researchers at the Boston Children’s Hospital have come up with a promising method of transplantation. They have designed a material, which is used for human islet cells encapsulation and transplantation.

 

Various alginate derivatives were created and tested in mice and nonhuman primates. The best one called the triazole-thiomorpholine dioxide (TMTD) was selected for testing in diabetic mice. A strong immune system mouse was used for implantation of human islet cells encapsulated in TMTD. The cells immediately generated insulin in blood sugar response and controlled it for 174 days.

 

Although various further studies are needed to confirm the potential of the approach, the method does hold promises of controlling blood sugar in diabetic patients. The method also will be tested on nonhuman primates for removing the dependence on insulin injections.