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Affecting eighter percent of America's population, diabetes can buoy lead to blindness, kidney failure, strokes and warmness disease. Thanks to Tel Aviv University researchers, a new cure - based on advances in cell therapy - may be within reach.
Prof. Shimon Efrat from TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, whose research group is among world leaders in beta cell expansion, has developed a way to cultivate cells derived from insulin-producing genus Beta cells from human tissue in the laboratory. It may be possible to implant these new healthy cells into patients with type 1 diabetes.
If successful, this method, which by artificial means replicates the insulin cells people motivation, could check that fewer people testament die patch waiting for a lifesaving pancreas and kidney. Prof. Efrat's research paves the way for new and alternative forms of handling in cases in which organ transplantation is non an option. And one day, the procedure may be as simple as a parentage transfusion.
The Multiplication Effect
Type 1 diabetes, the most stern form of the condition, emerges as a chronic condition in childhood or early maturity, when the body's immune system boodle working right and destroys the genus Beta cells in the pancreas. Beta cells are requisite to bring forth insulin, and a deficit of insulin inhibits the breakdown of food into energy. By the time a diagnosing is made, most beta cells are destroyed beyond repair. Injections of insulin can ease the symptoms, but some sufferers from the disease eventually command extreme measures, such as organ transplants, to stay alive.
"The dearth of organ donors makes the development of new cell sources for jail cell therapy critical," says Prof. Efrat. "Using beta cell expansion, we are able to grow a massive reserve of healthy cells that may be made to bring on enough insulin to reinstate the function of the destroyed cells."
In contrast to previous research, which failed to manifold mouse beta cells in culture, Prof. Efrat's form has increased the number of human beta cells successfully. "In theory, cells from 1 donor potty be multiplied thousands of times," says Prof. Efrat, explaining that the next hurdle will be to "convince" these beta cells to bring on insulin in the human body. Another major hurdle he faces is to get a body's immune system to accept these new cells when transplanted. Human clinical trials, Prof. Efrat cautions, may non begin for another five years or more.
Notes:
The enquiry, published in the acclaimed journal Diabetes and featured in a report by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, was performed in collaboration with the graduate students Holger Russ and Yael Bar.
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (web.aftau.org) supports Israel's largest and most comprehensive center of higher acquisition. It is ranked among the world's top century universities in science, biomedical studies, and social science, and rated one of the world's top two hundred universities overall. Internationally accepted for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research programs, Tel Aviv University consistently produces process with profound implications for the future.
Source:
George Hunka
American Friends of Tel Aviv University
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