They're getting closer!

~NightSky

A new study from Stanford Medicine reports that combining blood stem cell and pancreatic islet cell transplants from immunologically mismatched donors can prevent or even reverse Type 1 diabetes in mice and other lab animals.

In a new study from Stanford Medicine, researchers reversed Type 1 diabetes in mice using a combined transplant of blood stem cells and insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells from a donor whose immune profile did not match the recipient. Type 1 diabetes develops when the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys the islet cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, leaving the body unable to properly regulate blood sugar.

The dual transplant approach both restored insulin production and retrained the immune system. None of the treated animals developed graft-versus-host disease, a dangerous complication in which immune cells from donated blood stem cells attack healthy tissue in the recipient.

At the same time, the mice’s original immune systems stopped targeting and destroying the newly transplanted islet cells. For the full six months of the experiment, the animals did not need insulin injections or immune suppressive medications.

The possibility of translating these findings into humans is very exciting.

The key steps in our study — which result in animals with a hybrid immune system containing cells from both the donor and the recipient — are already being used in the clinic for other conditions. We believe this approach will be transformative for people with Type 1 diabetes or other autoimmune diseases, as well as for those who need solid organ transplants.