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This article originally posted 10 May, 2012 and appeared in

<http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/topics/type-1-diabetes> Type 1 Diabetes,

<http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/diabetes-in-control-newsletters/625> Issue

625

Immune Cell Therapy Possible Diabetes Cure

An experimental therapy that reprograms the immune system then spurs the

growth of healthy insulin-producing cells reversed late-stage diabetes in

mice....

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Mice with type 1 diabetes, a form of the disease in which the body's immune

system destroys cells that secrete insulin, were free of illness after

scientists shut down the immune attack, reprogrammed the errant cells and

coaxed the growth of healthy, new insulin-producers.

About 3 million Americans have type 1 diabetes. Anita Chong, a medical

researcher at the University of Chicago said that, " The experimental immune

system approach appears promising because it's the first time diabetes has

been cured in mice with advanced disease. "

" Conceptually, each component isn't novel, people have thought about them,

but put it together and show it can work? " said Chong, who wrote an

accompanying editorial to the study. " That's very exciting. "

Type 1 diabetes differs from the more common type 2 form in that it is an

autoimmune disease, in which the immune system kills the cells needed to

produce insulin. In type 2 diabetes, the body produces insulin but cells no

longer respond to it.

In the study, the mice were given antibodies to attack two kinds of immune

cells that kill the pancreas insulin-producing beta cells. Then the mice had

a bone marrow transplant to replenish the vanquished cells. Bone marrow is

where blood cells are made, and the transplant let the mice make immune

cells that wouldn't attack the beta cells. A treatment with pancreas growth

factor spurred creation of new beta cells.

There are many more steps before the treatment will be tested in humans,

starting with non-human primate models, she said in a telephone interview.

The study was led by Defu Zeng, an endocrinologist at City of Hope medical

center in Duarte, California.

Published in Science Translational Medicine. 9 May 2012, Vol. 4, #133