People with type 1 diabetes may give up insulin injections because of this study

Normally in healthy pancreases, beta cell clusters produce insulin to help the body control blood sugar.

People with type 1 diabetes have become accustomed to the image of daily insulin injections, such a form of treatment that has been around for nearly a century and has not yet been replaced. Even so, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists have succeeded in using stem cells to make beta cells capable of producing insulin , which they then put these cells into. experimental mice and diabetes disappeared after 6 months.

For healthy people, beta cell clusters produce insulin to help the body control blood sugar.

Normally in healthy pancreases, beta cell clusters produce insulin to help the body control blood sugar. Meanwhile, the pancreas of type 1 diabetics cannot do this, so blood sugar will build up instead of converting into energy, which will cause the immune system to automatically attack and drain. kill insulin-producing cells. That's why they have to supplement insulin by using external serum in the form of an injection.

In fact, a Harvard University team has succeeded in using stem cells to produce beta cells capable of producing large quantities of insulin since 2014. The amount of beta cells has reached hundreds. million and enough to transplant them into a mouse with hyperglycemia, resulting in a significant reduction in rat blood sugar. However, the mouse's immune system suddenly destroyed these beta cells, making the experiment only half successful.

The Harvard team's experiment wrapped beta cells in a gel called alginate.

It was the new MIT study that solved this problem when scientists wore beta cells an "invisibility cloak": avoiding the monitoring of the immune system . Specifically, the team discovered why the immune system is killing the transplanted beta cells like normal beta cells in people with type 1 diabetes. The Harvard team's experiment wrapped in beta cells. in a gel called alginate - made from brown algae - so when these cells enter the mouse body they are identified as "strange objects" due to their cover, so that is the Immunity will only destroy them.

To solve this problem, the MIT team changed the chemical structure of the alginate shell so that the immune system accepts it, in addition the new shell will protect beta cells better than unexpected agents. . After more than 800 test gel samples, scientists found the necessary name: triazole-thiomorpholine dioxide (TMTD). This compound helps transplanted beta cells to overcome the security barrier of white blood cells and carry out their insulin production. After only 174 days, the rat's blood sugar levels were significantly reduced to normal levels.

After more than 800 test gel samples, scientists found the necessary name: triazole-thiomorpholine dioxide (TMTD).

The lead author of this study, Dr. Arturo Vegas, said this treatment has the potential to provide people with new pancreatic diabetes who are not attacked by the immune system, thereby allowing their bodies Control blood sugar without taking any medicine. Human trials will begin in the next few years. And if this method is proven to be effective, patients only need cell transplants every few years, instead of the current daily insulin injections.