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Novocell:Stem cell transplant ‘cures’ diabetic mice

http://diabetesnews.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/stem-cell-transplant-cures-diabetic-mice-health-09-february-2008-new-scientist/

Stem cell transplant ‘cures’ diabetic mice
09 February 2008
Andy Coghlan
Magazine issue 2642
THE prospect of using transplants derived from stem cells to reverse diabetes has come a step closer with the news that the technique seems to work in mice.

A team from Novocell in San Diego, California, told a stem cell conference in Evry, France, last week that this is the first hint therapies derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) might cure type 1 diabetes. The only existing treatments for people with this autoimmune disease are regular insulin, or islet-cell transplants from cadavers.

The Novocell team grew hESCs - the embryonic cells from which all the body’s tissues originate - in the lab until they differentiated into insulin-producing islet cells. They then injected these cells into the abdomens or backs of mice whose own islet cells had been destroyed, to see if they could regulate glucose concentrations in the animals’ blood.

[From
Stem cell transplant ‘cures’ diabetic mice - health - 09 February 2008 - New Scientist