Diabetes breakthrough may mean one jab a year
BRITISH scientists have developed a stem cell breakthrough that could free diabetics from painful daily injections.
Diabetics may only need one injection a yearThe new research, published in the leading Journal of Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids last week, involves engineering blood stem cells into insulin-secreting cells.
Experts at London's Imperial College, led by Professor Nagy Habib, and scientists at Hammersmith Hospital are now planning human trials of the new treatment after success in laboratory studies. Dr Paul Mintz, a leading stem cell researcher at Imperial College, who is part of the team pioneering the research, said: "This is a fantastic breakthrough that we hope will end the burden of daily jabs for diabetics."
He added: "The beauty of this treatment is that we manipulate the patient's own stem cells, avoiding the complication of giving them something foreign which their body will reject."
This is a fantastic breakthrough that we hope will end the burden of daily jabs for diabetics.Dr Paul Mintz, a leading stem cell researcher at Imperial College
In diabetes the pancreas fails to make any insulin which crucially controls blood sugar levels or it doesn't make enough.
In laboratory studies the researchers have been able to get 35 per cent of engineered cells to make insulin. They are now planning to nurture and grow these cells so they have a colony of 100 per cent insulin-making cells that can be injected into a patient's body.
The team is working to develop stem cells that could release insulin for up to a year by coating the cells in a special biodegradable matrix.
Experts believe the single jab would lead to patients having enough levels of insulin in their body to prevent complications from diabetes that cost the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
Dr Ian Gallen, a leading diabetes consultant who treats hundreds of patients with the disease, said: "This is an amazing discovery. A once-a-year jab for diabetes would have a huge impact. If we could keep patients stable knowing their insulin levels wouldn't fluctuate it would represent an enormous saving of time and money for the NHS."
At present there are more than four million people in the UK with diabetes.
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