2008 Woodie Awards
Cure possible for future
Issue date: 3/20/08 Section: TruLife
We may see a cure for diabetes in our lifetime.
Millions of Americans are diagnosed with diabetes every year. Diabetes is a chronic condition in which the body cannot control the amount of sugar in the blood.
There are two types of diabetes, Type 1 and Type 2. Recent research and experiments conducted with stem cells suggest a hopeful future for those with Type 1 diabetes.
Professor of biology Jeanne Mitchell said this new research looks promising.
"I think there's a very high probability that we'll eventually get it to work," Mitchell said. "Not necessarily Type 2 because [the cells] may not respond to the insulin if it's there, but Type 1 … has a real possibility of curing."
There are two main problems that Mitchell said she sees in this process, one of which is preventing a person's immune system from attacking the transplant cells that would produce the insulin the body needs. Type 1 develops because the immune system kills off the original insulin-producing beta cells, Mitchell said. This is why people with Type 1 diabetes have to inject the insulin manually when the body needs it.
"You have to have something to convince the immune system not to kill off the cells or you just recreate the original problem," Mitchell said.
The second problem Mitchell said she sees is that researchers have not learned how to control stem cells. In theory, stem cells can do all the jobs normal cells do, but making them do more than one job at a time has been difficult so far, she said.
"There's a very complex and not very well understood mixture of factors that tells a stem cell what it's supposed to start being," Mitchell said. "And one of the big problems we've had with stem cells is coaxing cells to do what we want them to do, when we want them to do it."
There has been some success, however, with experiments in which stem cells are injected into a certain part of the body where known signals exist that can tell the cells what to do, Mitchell said.
Millions of Americans are diagnosed with diabetes every year. Diabetes is a chronic condition in which the body cannot control the amount of sugar in the blood.
There are two types of diabetes, Type 1 and Type 2. Recent research and experiments conducted with stem cells suggest a hopeful future for those with Type 1 diabetes.
Professor of biology Jeanne Mitchell said this new research looks promising.
"I think there's a very high probability that we'll eventually get it to work," Mitchell said. "Not necessarily Type 2 because [the cells] may not respond to the insulin if it's there, but Type 1 … has a real possibility of curing."
There are two main problems that Mitchell said she sees in this process, one of which is preventing a person's immune system from attacking the transplant cells that would produce the insulin the body needs. Type 1 develops because the immune system kills off the original insulin-producing beta cells, Mitchell said. This is why people with Type 1 diabetes have to inject the insulin manually when the body needs it.
"You have to have something to convince the immune system not to kill off the cells or you just recreate the original problem," Mitchell said.
The second problem Mitchell said she sees is that researchers have not learned how to control stem cells. In theory, stem cells can do all the jobs normal cells do, but making them do more than one job at a time has been difficult so far, she said.
"There's a very complex and not very well understood mixture of factors that tells a stem cell what it's supposed to start being," Mitchell said. "And one of the big problems we've had with stem cells is coaxing cells to do what we want them to do, when we want them to do it."
There has been some success, however, with experiments in which stem cells are injected into a certain part of the body where known signals exist that can tell the cells what to do, Mitchell said.
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