Actually, the research mentioned in the article is not introducing any stem cells, so if that's the source, it doesn't apply to this research. The idea here is that the spleen actually contains 'adult stemcells' that can differentiate into insulin producing cells.
The research in question is done by Faustman financed (at least partly) by the Iococca Foundation. ( http://www.iacoccafoundation.org/grants_diabetes_r esearch.html ) They're preparing for human trials of at least part of this protocol, but it seems that Dr. Faustman's work differs too much from the general direction of diabetes research, and it is not receiving any government funding. I wonder if the NIH mention in this article means that this is going to change.
From the research I've heard about (I have an understandable interest, as a type 1 diabetic), this research seems the 'neatest' solution: fix the immune system so it doesn't attack insulin producing cells anymore, then stimulate an apparently existing system in the human body to start creating new cells. There's still a lot of work to do before we know that this will work in humans, though...
My link to the subject is also my wife, btw., who has worked as a gardian/gezinsvoogd. She did get into a lot of trouble pointing out inconsistency and lack of guidelines in that job, though...
I agree that the setting of criteria by the government would help a lot in this case. There was talk (last year)of explicitly making hitting a child illegal, which I think would be a good start. I don't think it came through, though. I've noticed that there's many people that don't agree with this, but at the very least it would send a clear signal: nu violence.
But the point I was trying to make is that though it is nive to have the goal of having every child stay with its parents, this should not have a higher priority that protecting the child from abuse. And currently that is often the case. Or better: there is no rule or guideline that says otherwise, and the decision is left entirely to the guardian, who are more inclined to go for the 'softer' approach of coaching the parents. Which is good, but only after the child is safe.
Again, in some of the cases that have been in the media lately, the guardian (gezinsvoogd) already knew of the situation, but had the child returned to it's parent(s) or left a child with parents whose other children had already been removed (to protect them from abuse).
My point in all this is that if the actions taken on existing, known data are such as these, having more data won't fix the problem.
And that's apart from the whole privacy concern that you can find in this discussion elsewhere. I think that's an important point, but mostly I think that this is a fix for the wrong problem.
It's not the unlinked databases that 'stopped us from preventing several children being murdered'. It's simply incompetence of the organisations that are supposed to protect those children.
The cases that have been in the media in the last year (which are just a few examples, as 1 to 2 children *a week* are killed by abuse in the Netherlands!) are cases where the family was already under control of a child protection agency. The situation was known to the 'gezinsvoogd' (custodian? it's the person assigned responsibility over a child by the judge when there are serious problems) but they didn't react, or at least not very effectively.
The reasons this system doesn't work are simple:
1) The safety of the child is not a priority. In most of the agencies there is a huge pressure to make sure the child stays with the parents. Even if the parents have repeatedly physically abused the child! The reason given for this is that it is better for the psycologicaldevelopment of the child to stay with its parents. True, but first things first, please...
2) History is disregarded. Parents from who children have been taken because of abuse are allowed to keep their other children. Apparently this is a 'different relationship'. Go figure.
3) The organisations charged with protection of the children are both inadequately funded, and inadequately run. There is usually no clear structure or guidelines on how to deal with different cases, no place to get expert help (ie. no child psycologists available, and no budget to go to an external expert), no rules on how to keep records, even!
Fixing these problems is not done by linking databases. It's done by reorganisation of the system, and proper regard for children's safety as *the* primary requirement.
Seems like a case of click and read before answering... The guy is funding research done at (IIRC) Mass. General Hospital, and is putting in millions of his own money. Furthermore, this Iococca guy seems to be something of a celebrity business man in the US, so that helps too:-)
As far as the research is concerned, from what I've read on the website, this is the first possible general cure for diabetes type 1 that I've seen. It is supposed to fix the auto-immune respone that causes diabetes, and (apparently as a surprise to the researchers, in the 'mice' stage) once that is fixed the spleen seems to start work on new insulin producing cells.
The research has been in the news a lot in the last year, precisely because of that spleen reaction. Apparently the spleen is capable of creating ancestor cells that people thought the human body couldn't produce after birth.
Actually, Cyrus uses a maildir format, and just has a database for the indexing and stuff (which can be regenerated, naturally).
I used to have UW IMAP, but at some point it just got too slow. Another advantage of Cyrus is that it can deal with multiple concurrent client for one account, so that my mail doesn't slow to a crawl if I forget to close my mail client on another machine.
Last year I participated in a test of a continuous metering system at the (academic) hospital where I go. It definetively wasn't non-invasive, though! The metering was by measuring some properties of a fluid that was pumped through a tube (containing some sort of reagent (sp?)) that was looped through, ehm, me. The measuring device itself was rather big, too, but in a research sample, that's only to be expeced. The device still had quite a few problems, especially with the tube getting easily dislodged. It did give an alarm signal on sudden changes in glucose levels, though, and for values above or below certain limits.
The point of this post is that the data from this test, flawed as it was, still gave me some interesting insights in the development of my glucose levels during the day (like sharp dips right after the lunch, probably due to the humalog insulin working a lot faster than expected), proving that continuous monitoring can (though not in this form, it was *really* uncomfortable!) really help in managing blood sugar levels.
I'm a type 1 diabetic, using a disetronic d-tron pump and a disetronic freestyle blood tester.
One thing I've noticed is that though I test regularly, I only create overviews of test results every now and then. Those overview are important to gain insight in how well I'm regulated, though, so I should do that more often.
Now the blood-test device has a serial cable link to my computer (linked to windows-only software, unfortunately), so I can load all the past results on my laptop (the only machine in the house that has windows installed), and create a few nice looking graphs.
The D-Tron pump actually has an infra-red port, but for some reason no software has been released to actually make use of that. This is a shame, since my glucose-level graphs would gain a lot from the extra data of my pump's insulin extrusion.
Then there's the additional data that can be very useful when reviewing blood glucose levels, such as 'right after a hypo', or 'ate too much ice-cream', or '1hr prolonged bolus to compensate for pasta', and such. The only way to store that, a the moment, is good old fashioned paper. Which means that I often don't...
So for me a good device would:
Allow me to store either free text, or some pre-defined tag, along with the glucose-level values. (or voice tags?)
Allow for ease transfer of data to the PC (and preferably not just in a windows-only proprietary interface. I want to be able to load stuff into a spreadsheet and such...)
Allow me to read my pump data, though that is a software issue, not for the device you'll be working on
Other things that are appreciated are: small size, inclusion of the finger-pricking thingy in the same package, being able to load a set of control-strips, backlight for checking in the dark, NO SOUND option (my wife is sleeping next to me, and I don't want to wake her just because I want to check my blood sugar).
The freestyle also allows one to check from blood on the arm, instead of the finger. This is significantly less painfull, so encourages checking. It also lags a bit; The values from the finger will be more up-to-date than those from the arm, so it's not good for when you feel a hypo coming up. Still, a good feature.
Re:Do NOT Read The Difference Engine
on
The Zenith Angle
·
· Score: 1
> (ObBookPlug for Peter F. Hamilton too.. with a > negative for John C Wright to balance it out > in the space opera subgenre.)
Unless you're like me and don't like Deus Ex Machina endings. Granted, that's only for the 'The Night's Dawn' trilogy. His other stuff is ok.
But I'm still rather upset by having a reasonably good space opera trilogy unravel after a few thousend pages into a 'Poof, and a wand was waved and everybody lives happily ever after'.
The article is originally from CRN, run by Chris Phoenix, of which Erik Drexler is on the board of directors.
It does not describe the structure of a molecular assembler, but is a reasonably detailed exploration of how a nano-factory, capable of building diamandoid structures and machinery, could be build once a molecular assembler is available. It does describe a few directions in which people have had ideas for different approaches to creating molecular assemblers, though. And it's an interesting read if you want to see how people have seriously been thinking about ways to create MNT.
Funnily enough, Drexler mentions that same quotation in one of the letters:
'A scientist whose research I respect has observed that "when a scientist says something is possible, they're probably underestimating how long it will take. But if they say it's impossible, they're probably wrong." The scientist quoted is, of course, Richard Smalley.'
"From reading the letters I don't think Drexler has really addressed the problems raised by Smalley fingers at all, he just tries to brush the problems aside"
If you'd read the letter a little more closely, you would have seen that Drexler didn't address the problems with those 'sticky fingers' because he'd thought of the problems a long time before smalley, and had thus dismissed that idea a long time ago. The worrying thing is that Smalley found it necessary to use an already dismissed idea as a straw man to try and make Drexler look bad. Not very scientific. And certainly not conductive to the advancement of science.
From other's (I'm neither a physicist, chemist or biologist) reactions on Smalleys technical arguments, I gather that his understanding of proteins is 20 years outdated, since that's how far back it was proven that proteins can function outside of water. Biology works because when it found one reaction that worked, it stuck with it and developed it further. If something is not demonstrated in biology, that doesn't mean it can't exist. Conversely, if something is demonstrated in biology (and as Drexler argues, that is true for molecular assemblers), we know it's possible.
The idea of a making and breaking chemical bonds with molecular precision has already been demonstrated. That it won't work with every combination of molecules is a given. But then, it's very difficult to drive a nail into a wall if your hammer is knitted out of wool, and the nail made of rubber.
The bottom line in this debate is that Drexler, and with him many others, believe this is a promissing direction for research. Unfortunately, Smalley is the one holding the purse (he's with the NNI), and doesn't want any research in that direction.
Drexler talks about being prepared, Smalley about not worrying the children. Regardless of who is right on the science side, what do you think is the wiser decision?
Interestingly, this is what Mandrake uses. Mandrake has a 'What to do?' menu, next to the normal, fully filled menu, which contains entries such as:
Use the Internet -> Read and send mail
-> Browse the web
-> Access newsgroups Administer your system -> change your password
-> add programs use office tools -> create a text document with OpenOffice.org
etc.
Never used it, really, but I'm sure it is nice for new users.
Is it just me, or does that license agreement read as an agreement for the use of SVR2 for internal use, not as any kind of agreement for it to be used as basis for the creation of IBM's own unix software?
Which might mean that there is another license, which *does* have the correct transference of rights, or that IBM is of the opinion that they don't need any such license.
The way I read the article, the whole point is that there will be no need to harvest stem cells from embryo's once they find out how the NanOg gene is activated at about the 4th day of pregnancy.
Once that is known, it will be possible to 'trigger' an adult cell to transform into a pluripotent cell.
The whole system of using just a couple of cell lines is only usefull for research (and that limit has been an obstacle for research as well), not for medical application of stem cells. The point of using stem cells being that you could use cells with your own DNA to create new tissue/organs instead of donor material.
And the company that made my pump, disetronic, actually did notify me of a problem with the pump in february. They also detailed how to make sure you were not affected by the bug (I'm still not sure if it's a soft- or hardware bug, BTW), and where to send the reserve-pump so they could fix it.
Good service alltogether, I thought. No bug would be better, of course:-)
Sometimes the way of thinking of those opponents is just incomprehencible for me. Take the following quote, taken from that article:
Kass argues that even "modest enhancers" who say that they "merely want to improve our capacity to resist and prevent diseases, diminish our propensities for pain and suffering, decrease the likelihood of death" are deceiving themselves and us. Behind these modest goals, he says, actually lies a utopian project to achieve "nothing less than a painless, suffering-free, and, finally, immortal existence."
You mean there are people out there that actually want to live? and without pain and suffering, too? Creaps!
Try the dysetronic freestyle meter. It allows you to get the blood from your lower arm (and other places) to you can spare your finger. This is possible because it need very little blood, and has a special 'pricker' that lets you put pressure on those spots so that a little blood comes out, even with shallow wounds.
It's not that I like talking to myself, but I just came across the following interview with a guy that is actually working on selectively stopping only the auto-immune reaction.
Yet another case of progress being made at high speed... (Too high for me to keep tabs on, anyways) Go!
No needles would be nice, but my insulin needs are so convoluted that I really need the flexibility of an insulin pump to get my blood glucose values to be acceptable. (Besides, after 16 years, I really don't care about one puncture more or less:-)
The oral insulin looks interesting, but any system that still requires me to actively maintain the balance between glucose and insulin is only of temporary value.
One option that won't necessarily require gene/clone research is encapsulation of beta cells before transplanting them. By laying a shell around the cells, with openings large enough to allow the insulin to pass through, but small enough to keep T-cells at a distance, the new beta cells can get to work without worrying about any immune system reaction.
I've no url handy, but I've heard of several types of encapsulation being researched. All just past the 'mice' stage of research, so don't hold your breath...
The idea, as far as I can read it from the linked articles, is that the new insulin producing cells act in the same way as normal, pancreas based, beta cells would. If this is the case, then they would presumably also react to the blood glucose level, and 'automatically' release insulin as long as that level is too high/rising.
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...)
Slashdot Mirror
No.
Actually, the research mentioned in the article is not introducing any stem cells, so if that's the source, it doesn't apply to this research. The idea here is that the spleen actually contains 'adult stemcells' that can differentiate into insulin producing cells.
r esearch.html )
The research in question is done by Faustman financed (at least partly) by the Iococca Foundation. ( http://www.iacoccafoundation.org/grants_diabetes_
They're preparing for human trials of at least part of this protocol, but it seems that Dr. Faustman's work differs too much from the general direction of diabetes research, and it is not receiving any government funding. I wonder if the NIH mention in this article means that this is going to change.
From the research I've heard about (I have an understandable interest, as a type 1 diabetic), this research seems the 'neatest' solution: fix the immune system so it doesn't attack insulin producing cells anymore, then stimulate an apparently existing system in the human body to start creating new cells. There's still a lot of work to do before we know that this will work in humans, though...
As far as that last comment goes: 'apt-get install krusader'. Even has Total Commander keybindings if you want them.
Great post, thanks.
My link to the subject is also my wife, btw., who has worked as a gardian/gezinsvoogd. She did get into a lot of trouble pointing out inconsistency and lack of guidelines in that job, though...
I agree that the setting of criteria by the government would help a lot in this case. There was talk (last year)of explicitly making hitting a child illegal, which I think would be a good start. I don't think it came through, though.
I've noticed that there's many people that don't agree with this, but at the very least it would send a clear signal: nu violence.
Well, I did say 'proper' :-)
But the point I was trying to make is that though it is nive to have the goal of having every child stay with its parents, this should not have a higher priority that protecting the child from abuse. And currently that is often the case.
Or better: there is no rule or guideline that says otherwise, and the decision is left entirely to the guardian, who are more inclined to go for the 'softer' approach of coaching the parents. Which is good, but only after the child is safe.
Again, in some of the cases that have been in the media lately, the guardian (gezinsvoogd) already knew of the situation, but had the child returned to it's parent(s) or left a child with parents whose other children had already been removed (to protect them from abuse).
My point in all this is that if the actions taken on existing, known data are such as these, having more data won't fix the problem.
And that's apart from the whole privacy concern that you can find in this discussion elsewhere. I think that's an important point, but mostly I think that this is a fix for the wrong problem.
It's not the unlinked databases that 'stopped us from preventing several children being murdered'. It's simply incompetence of the organisations that are supposed to protect those children.
The cases that have been in the media in the last year (which are just a few examples, as 1 to 2 children *a week* are killed by abuse in the Netherlands!) are cases where the family was already under control of a child protection agency. The situation was known to the 'gezinsvoogd' (custodian? it's the person assigned responsibility over a child by the judge when there are serious problems) but they didn't react, or at least not very effectively.
The reasons this system doesn't work are simple:
1) The safety of the child is not a priority. In most of the agencies there is a huge pressure to make sure the child stays with the parents. Even if the parents have repeatedly physically abused the child! The reason given for this is that it is better for the psycologicaldevelopment of the child to stay with its parents. True, but first things first, please...
2) History is disregarded. Parents from who children have been taken because of abuse are allowed to keep their other children. Apparently this is a 'different relationship'. Go figure.
3) The organisations charged with protection of the children are both inadequately funded, and inadequately run. There is usually no clear structure or guidelines on how to deal with different cases, no place to get expert help (ie. no child psycologists available, and no budget to go to an external expert), no rules on how to keep records, even!
Fixing these problems is not done by linking databases. It's done by reorganisation of the system, and proper regard for children's safety as *the* primary requirement.
Seems like a case of click and read before answering... The guy is funding research done at (IIRC) Mass. General Hospital, and is putting in millions of his own money. Furthermore, this Iococca guy seems to be something of a celebrity business man in the US, so that helps too:-)
As far as the research is concerned, from what I've read on the website, this is the first possible general cure for diabetes type 1 that I've seen.
It is supposed to fix the auto-immune respone that causes diabetes, and (apparently as a surprise to the researchers, in the 'mice' stage) once that is fixed the spleen seems to start work on new insulin producing cells.
The research has been in the news a lot in the last year, precisely because of that spleen reaction. Apparently the spleen is capable of creating ancestor cells that people thought the human body couldn't produce after birth.
Actually, Cyrus uses a maildir format, and just has a database for the indexing and stuff (which can be regenerated, naturally).
I used to have UW IMAP, but at some point it just got too slow. Another advantage of Cyrus is that it can deal with multiple concurrent client for one account, so that my mail doesn't slow to a crawl if I forget to close my mail client on another machine.
Last year I participated in a test of a continuous metering system at the (academic) hospital where I go.
It definetively wasn't non-invasive, though! The metering was by measuring some properties of a fluid that was pumped through a tube (containing some sort of reagent (sp?)) that was looped through, ehm, me.
The measuring device itself was rather big, too, but in a research sample, that's only to be expeced.
The device still had quite a few problems, especially with the tube getting easily dislodged. It did give an alarm signal on sudden changes in glucose levels, though, and for values above or below certain limits.
The point of this post is that the data from this test, flawed as it was, still gave me some interesting insights in the development of my glucose levels during the day (like sharp dips right after the lunch, probably due to the humalog insulin working a lot faster than expected), proving that continuous monitoring can (though not in this form, it was *really* uncomfortable!) really help in managing blood sugar levels.
One thing I've noticed is that though I test regularly, I only create overviews of test results every now and then. Those overview are important to gain insight in how well I'm regulated, though, so I should do that more often.
Now the blood-test device has a serial cable link to my computer (linked to windows-only software, unfortunately), so I can load all the past results on my laptop (the only machine in the house that has windows installed), and create a few nice looking graphs.
The D-Tron pump actually has an infra-red port, but for some reason no software has been released to actually make use of that. This is a shame, since my glucose-level graphs would gain a lot from the extra data of my pump's insulin extrusion.
Then there's the additional data that can be very useful when reviewing blood glucose levels, such as 'right after a hypo', or 'ate too much ice-cream', or '1hr prolonged bolus to compensate for pasta', and such. The only way to store that, a the moment, is good old fashioned paper. Which means that I often don't...
So for me a good device would:
Other things that are appreciated are: small size, inclusion of the finger-pricking thingy in the same package, being able to load a set of control-strips, backlight for checking in the dark, NO SOUND option (my wife is sleeping next to me, and I don't want to wake her just because I want to check my blood sugar).
The freestyle also allows one to check from blood on the arm, instead of the finger. This is significantly less painfull, so encourages checking. It also lags a bit; The values from the finger will be more up-to-date than those from the arm, so it's not good for when you feel a hypo coming up. Still, a good feature.
> (ObBookPlug for Peter F. Hamilton too.. with a
> negative for John C Wright to balance it out
> in the space opera subgenre.)
Unless you're like me and don't like Deus Ex Machina endings.
Granted, that's only for the 'The Night's Dawn' trilogy. His other stuff is ok.
But I'm still rather upset by having a reasonably good space opera trilogy unravel after a few thousend pages into a 'Poof, and a wand was waved and everybody lives happily ever after'.
The article is originally from CRN, run by Chris Phoenix, of which Erik Drexler is on the board of directors.
It does not describe the structure of a molecular assembler, but is a reasonably detailed exploration of how a nano-factory, capable of building diamandoid structures and machinery, could be build once a molecular assembler is available.
It does describe a few directions in which people have had ideas for different approaches to creating molecular assemblers, though. And it's an interesting read if you want to see how people have seriously been thinking about ways to create MNT.
Funnily enough, Drexler mentions that same quotation in one of the letters:
'A scientist whose research I respect has observed that "when a scientist says something is possible, they're probably underestimating how long it will take. But if they say it's impossible, they're probably wrong." The scientist quoted is, of course, Richard Smalley.'
"From reading the letters I don't think Drexler has really addressed the problems raised by Smalley fingers at all, he just tries to brush the problems aside"
If you'd read the letter a little more closely, you would have seen that Drexler didn't address the problems with those 'sticky fingers' because he'd thought of the problems a long time before smalley, and had thus dismissed that idea a long time ago.
The worrying thing is that Smalley found it necessary to use an already dismissed idea as a straw man to try and make Drexler look bad. Not very scientific. And certainly not conductive to the advancement of science.
From other's (I'm neither a physicist, chemist or biologist) reactions on Smalleys technical arguments, I gather that his understanding of proteins is 20 years outdated, since that's how far back it was proven that proteins can function outside of water.
Biology works because when it found one reaction that worked, it stuck with it and developed it further. If something is not demonstrated in biology, that doesn't mean it can't exist. Conversely, if something is demonstrated in biology (and as Drexler argues, that is true for molecular assemblers), we know it's possible.
The idea of a making and breaking chemical bonds with molecular precision has already been demonstrated. That it won't work with every combination of molecules is a given. But then, it's very difficult to drive a nail into a wall if your hammer is knitted out of wool, and the nail made of rubber.
The bottom line in this debate is that Drexler, and with him many others, believe this is a promissing direction for research. Unfortunately, Smalley is the one holding the purse (he's with the NNI), and doesn't want any research in that direction.
Drexler talks about being prepared, Smalley about not worrying the children. Regardless of who is right on the science side, what do you think is the wiser decision?
Of course, someone has already made that:
http://www.satokar.com/viplugin/index.php
(and for the emacs-minded, eclipse can use different key-bindings, and an emacs one is provided...)
Wouter
Interestingly, this is what Mandrake uses.
Mandrake has a 'What to do?' menu, next to the normal, fully filled menu, which contains entries such as:
Use the Internet -> Read and send mail
-> Browse the web
-> Access newsgroups
Administer your system -> change your password
-> add programs
use office tools -> create a text document with OpenOffice.org
etc.
Never used it, really, but I'm sure it is nice for new users.
Wouter
Is it just me, or does that license agreement read as an agreement for the use of SVR2 for internal use, not as any kind of agreement for it to be used as basis for the creation of IBM's own unix software?
Which might mean that there is another license, which *does* have the correct transference of rights, or that IBM is of the opinion that they don't need any such license.
The way I read the article, the whole point is that there will be no need to harvest stem cells from embryo's once they find out how the NanOg gene is activated at about the 4th day of pregnancy.
Once that is known, it will be possible to 'trigger' an adult cell to transform into a pluripotent cell.
The whole system of using just a couple of cell lines is only usefull for research (and that limit has been an obstacle for research as well), not for medical application of stem cells.
The point of using stem cells being that you could use cells with your own DNA to create new tissue/organs instead of donor material.
Me too!
And the company that made my pump, disetronic, actually did notify me of a problem with the pump in february. They also detailed how to make sure you were not affected by the bug (I'm still not sure if it's a soft- or hardware bug, BTW), and where to send the reserve-pump so they could fix it.
Good service alltogether, I thought. No bug would be better, of course:-)
Sometimes the way of thinking of those opponents is just incomprehencible for me. Take the following quote, taken from that article:
You mean there are people out there that actually want to live? and without pain and suffering, too? Creaps!
<sigh>
Try the dysetronic freestyle meter. It allows you to get the blood from your lower arm (and other places) to you can spare your finger.
This is possible because it need very little blood, and has a special 'pricker' that lets you put pressure on those spots so that a little blood comes out, even with shallow wounds.
For me it's much more comfortable.
It's not that I like talking to myself, but I just came across the following interview
with a guy that is actually working on selectively stopping only the auto-immune reaction.
Yet another case of progress being made at high speed... (Too high for me to keep tabs on, anyways)
Go!
No needles would be nice, but my insulin needs are so convoluted that I really need the flexibility of an insulin pump to get my blood glucose values to be acceptable. (Besides, after 16 years, I really don't care about one puncture more or less:-)
The oral insulin looks interesting, but any system that still requires me to actively maintain the balance between glucose and insulin is only of temporary value.
One option that won't necessarily require gene/clone research is encapsulation of beta cells before transplanting them.
By laying a shell around the cells, with openings large enough to allow the insulin to pass through, but small enough to keep T-cells at a distance, the new beta cells can get to work without worrying about any immune system reaction.
I've no url handy, but I've heard of several types of encapsulation being researched. All just past the 'mice' stage of research, so don't hold your breath...
The idea, as far as I can read it from the linked articles, is that the new insulin producing cells act in the same way as normal, pancreas based, beta cells would. If this is the case, then they would presumably also react to the blood glucose level, and 'automatically' release insulin as long as that level is too high/rising.
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...)