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Diabetes "Cured" In Mice With Virus Therapy

Posted by timothy on from the please-trick-my-brain-into-acting-like-a-brain dept.

phlack writes "Scientists at Baylor College of Medicine have found a way to treat diabetes in mice by using a virus (with the harmful genes removed) to trick the liver into working as a pancreas. This is still a ways away from working in humans, but it's progress, at least. Info can be found at Guardian and Science Daily."

3 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Here's a link by VisorGuy · · Score: 3, Informative

    to Google News' list of related articles.

    --
    This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
  2. Re:Problem of autoimmune destruction not solved by iawia · · Score: 3, Informative

    That is indeed a problem, but it apparently is possible to chart the two effects seperately. The type of T cells used to attack foreign material is different enough from the auto-immune type for there to be seperate tests for the two effects.

    I attended a presentation on a Dutch/Belgian effort late last year, where the subjects were people who had a whole pancreas transplanted. There were neatly seperated charts for the normal immune reaction and the auto-immune reaction, and the combination. Only is both reaction were sufficiently low did the transplant succeed (and the success-rate was rather low, I'm sorry to say...)

  3. Type 1 Diabetes cured LONG ago!!! by ivi · · Score: 3, Informative


    C'mon, fellas... CBC's science program Quirks & Quarks
    reported (over 18 months ago) that islet transplants
    were suceeding in almost 90% of cases.

    A further development (by a private sector co.)
    reported greater success rates or fewer problems.

    Let's get this story as well, eh?