Trials for Type 1 Diabetes Cure

An anonymous reader writes "According to this New York Times article, the pharmaceutical companies and NIH are shunning research for a cure for Type 1 diabetes. There's no money in a cure using medicine with an expired patent. Dr Faustman (researcher/professor at Harvard Medical School) has cured type 1 diabetes in mice and has been approved for Phase 1 clinical trials in humans. The only problem is raising the money, which Lee Iacocca is helping with."

Comments

Non-NYT article link

[vslashg]

The NYT must be cracking down; the first dozen logins from bugmenot.com didn't work for me.

No problem, I found a copy of the NYT article on Lee Iacocca's page. (Hopefully the server holds up.) Enjoy.

Re:public health care

[psyconaut]

Unfortunately, our medicare system is in a bit of a mess right now. Sorting out things like waiting lists for MRIs and non-elective surgery are big priorities.

Money for pure research projects up here is few and far between (although I'm not saying it's non-existent -- research at hospitals like Sick Kids in Toronto is excellent).

But, agreed...it'd sure be nice if someone took up the gauntlet and pursued a cure for Type 1 diabetes.

-psy

Much to early for any conclusion

[xplenumx]

As an Immunologist - I can't even begin to count the number of times we've cured RA (EAE), GvHD, various forms of cancer, etc. in mice, only to have the 'cure' fail, or even make the disease worse, in patients.

RTFA

[TheLink]

Read the article again till the end.

They found that the treatment/drugs supposed to prepare the mice for transplant actually _cured_ the mice. The treatment was supposed to stop the immune system from blowing away the transplanted islet cells. But after the treatment the islet cells _regrew_ back. So there was no need for a transplant.

""No one had cured them," he said. "Here was this treatment that we thought would get them ready for a transplant but - eureka! - the diabetes was cured.""

Re:RTFA

[waterbear]

TheLink wrote "Read the article again till the end."

I suggest reading the literature on the subject as well. It is well known that immune destruction starts off IDDM, but there is no evidence -- including regard to what is reported in the article -- that immune suppression revives beta-cells in patients who have none left. I.e. the large majority of humans with IDDM have long since lost all their beta cells to the destructive process that has run its course, and there is no bringing those cells back from the dead.

And I stick to what I said about the big bad pharma angle being mixed up too. If a drug or combination of drugs has a surprising new effect then patent protection is likely to be available on the usual conditions no matter how much noise to the contrary is made on /. If this is a useful new application of BCG there is no rule nowadays that stops a patent for the new use.

-wb-

Re:RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

It still sounds like you haven't read the article. In the mice, the spleen seems capable of regenerating islet cells.

RTRA (read the real article)

[drjzzz]

Once you've digested the NYT article, have a look at the original research article published in the journal Science. The original paper is linked from the PubMed abstract, which is linked from this (brief) discussion discussion on a slashsite called MedDot.org.