Khaberni - A recent study from Stanford University has revealed a promising therapeutic method that could radically transform the treatment of Type 1 diabetes, which occurs when the immune system attacks the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. This leads to the body losing its ability to regulate blood sugar levels.
The researchers were able to protect or completely cure mice by transplanting two types of cells: hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for forming the immune system, and islet cells from the pancreas that produce insulin, from immunologically mismatched donors. Surprisingly, the body did not reject the transplanted cells nor were they attacked by the new immune cells, and the mice did not require immunosuppressive drugs or insulin for six months, which equals a significant lifespan in mice.
This success is attributed to the formation of a hybrid immune system that combines cells from the donor and recipient, which "reeducated" the immune system to stop attacking the pancreatic cells. Dr. Seung K. Kim, director of the Diabetes Research Center at Stanford, said, “The possibility of applying these results to humans is very exciting,” confirming that the fundamental steps in the experiment are already applied in treating other diseases, which enhances the chances of its future human use.
The new study complements the results of previous experiments in 2022 but addresses authentic autoimmune diabetes, where the transplanted islet cells face two risks: rejection by the body and recurrent autoimmune attacks. To overcome this, the team added a drug commonly used to treat autoimmune diseases before transplantation, which prevented the mice from developing diabetes and successfully treated all nine mice with long-term diabetes after the combined transplantation of stem and islet cells.
The researchers confirmed that all the drugs and treatments used are already available in human clinics, which increases the probabilities of moving to clinical trials. However, there are still obstacles, the most significant being the limited availability of pancreatic islet cells from donors, the need for a unified source to avoid body rejection, and the difficulty in providing a sufficient quantity to treat a single patient. Scientists are currently seeking solutions such as producing human islet cells from stem cells in the laboratory and improving the protection of transplanted cells to ensure their survival and effectiveness in the body.
