(From: university of alberta)
In the past 20 years, many researchers have conceived of transplanting cells from donors to patients with uncontrollable type I diabetes.
However, considering that there are 450 million people suffering from various forms of diabetes in the world, if we need to find potential treatments in the future, the medical community cannot rely entirely on organ donation.
In addition to limited donors, transplantable organs also face serious rejection, which may even lead to a series of potential problems, such as increasing the risk of certain cancers or fatal infections.
In order to overcome this shortcoming, university of alberta's research team tried to extract blood samples from patients with different forms of diabetes, extract white blood cells from them, and then "reprogram" them through novel stem cell technology.
By restoring the cells to the "initial state" close to the embryonic period, researchers can turn them into human cells that can produce insulin in nearly a month, just like inside the pancreas.
Then transplant it into mice to completely reverse the symptoms of diabetes. Dr. James Shapiro said that this process is a bit like gathering sand into a tower and turning stone into gold.
Looking forward to the future, the research team hopes to achieve the same result soon through special treatment of patients' own blood-in addition to avoiding rejection, this therapy is also expected to be suitable for two types of diabetes.
Before that, scientists in university of alberta need to conduct more human experiments. Meanwhile, the Canadian Diabetes Research Foundation aims to raise 22 million Canadian dollars next year.