Diabetes researchers growing insulin-control cells by the billions

Good news: A scientific breakthrough offers the hope of new treatments for diabetics such as Ryan Buhlman, of Warrnambool, who uses an insulin pump. Photo: Damian White

Harvard researchers have pioneered a technique to grow by the billions the insulin-producing cells diabetics lack, a breakthrough that might create new ways to treat the disease.

The breakthrough comes after 15 years of seeking a bulk recipe for making beta cells, which sense the level of sugar in the blood and keep it in a healthy range by making precise amounts of insulin, according to Harvard scientists led by Douglas Melton, who have published their work in the journal Cell. The process begins with human stem cells, which have the ability to become any type of tissue or organ.

The technique is an important step towards understanding and treating diabetes, a condition in which the pancreas's beta cells are insufficient or dead. Diabetes affects 347 million people worldwide, and its chronic high blood-sugar levels can injure hearts, eyes, kidneys, the nervous system and other tissues.

"This is part of the holy grail of regenerative medicine or tissue engineering, trying to make an unlimited source of cells or tissues or organs that you can use in a patient to correct a disease," said Albert Hwa, director of discovery science at JDRF, a New York-based diabetes advocacy group that funded Dr Melton's work.

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The procedure for making mature, insulin-secreting beta cells had taken years of painstaking research that led to a 30-day, six-step recipe, Dr Melton said. Laboratories would be able to use the cells to test drugs and learn more about how diabetes occurs, he said.

"They had to go through an awful lot of trial and error to get to this," said Jeanne Loring, director of the Scripps Research Institute's Centre for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla, California. "The proof will be in how well this protocol works for people in other laboratories."

People with type 2 diabetes, in which the body loses its ability to produce insulin over time, usually take drugs that boost its production. About 15 per cent of patients with type 2 diabetes could not make enough of the hormone, even with drug treatment, and had tohave daily injections to replace it, Dr Melton said.

Type 1 diabetes destroys beta cells, and patients must carefully monitor their food and exercise while injecting appropriate doses of insulin to keep blood-sugar levels in a healthy range. While self-treatment technology had improved, nothing could replace human beta cells for controlling blood sugar, Dr Melton said.

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Diabetes researchers growing insulin-control cells by the billions