Medical researchers have reported that they have engineered an adult stem cells those are derived from the human umbilical cord blood to produce insulin which one day will surely help to cure type 1 diabetes by allowing people to grow their own insulin-producing cells for a damaged or defective pancreas.

This laboratory finding took almost four years to target success and according to the June 2007 issue of the medical journal Cell Proliferation who posted it online this week it is, ‘the first demonstration that human umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells can be engineered’ to synthesize insulin.

According to Dr. Randall J. Urban, senior author of the paper, professor and chair of internal medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and director of UTMB’s Nelda C. and Lutcher H. J. Stark Diabetes Center:

This discovery tells us that we have the potential to produce insulin from adult stem cells to help people with diabetes. It doesn’t prove that we’re going to be able to do this in people - it’s just the first step up the rung of the ladder.

Larry Denne, UTMB professor of internal medicine/endocrinology says that by functioning with adult stem cells instead of embryonic stem cells, doctors those who are working with supposed regenerative medicine ultimately might achieve the formulae to extract stem cells from an individual’s blood and then they should grow them in laboratory in large numbers to tweak them so that they are directed to create a needed organ.

This new method is expected to evade the common pitfall involved in transplanting cells or organs from other people organ rejection that requires organ recipients to obtain immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of their lives.

It is estimated that huge numbers of stem cells are required to create new organs and researchers might eradicate thousands of donor cells from an individual to grow them in the laboratory into billions of cells, explained Denner, after that for a victim suffering with type 1 diabetes, researchers might engineer these cells to suit islets of Langerhans, the cellular masses that produce the hormone insulin, which allows body to utilize sugar, synthesize proteins and to store neutral fats, or lipids but Denner asserted:

But we’re a long way from that,

Denner further quoted that this research which reflects a prolific teamwork with co-authors Drs. Colin McGuckin and Nico Forraz at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in the United Kingdom, used human umbilical cord blood because it is chiefly rich source of fresh adult stem cells and it is easily available from donors undergoing with Caesarian section deliveries in UTMB hospitals.

Embryonic stem cells were tested to produce cardiac, neural, blood, lung and liver progenitor cells that perform many of the functions required to help replace cells and tissues injured by many diseases.

The researchers also quoted that they engineered adult stem cells in the laboratory to finalize that they were subject to divide and afterwards they used earlier booming method in which complex signals created by the embryonic mouse pancreas were used to direct adult stem cells to begin developing, or ‘differentiating,’ into islet-like cells.

As researchers grew these adult stem cells in the laboratory they also performed other tests in which the cells to be engineered showed substantiation of a characteristic, or marker, known as SSEA-4 which was previously considered to exist only in embryonic cells.

It was also originated that like embryonic cells these adult stem cells also produced both C-peptide, a part of the insulin precursor protein, and insulin itself and by authenticating the occurrence of the C-peptide which was also especially crucial, the researchers suggested as insulin is often found in the growth media with which the cells are nurtured and are often taken up by such cells, the presence of the C-peptide verifies that at least some of the insulin was produced, or synthesized, by the engineered cells.

Via: Scienceblog