UF Health diabetes researchers multiply T-cells – News Chief

By Savannah Edgens Special to The Ledger

A group of University of Florida health researchers has found a way to expand andpreserve certain cord-blood cells, which could prove to be a treatment for Type I diabetes.

The findings involved regulatory cells known as T-cells, which are white blood cells thatsupport the immune system and protect against diabetes and other autoimmune diseases. Theresearch revealed that the T-cells can be frozen, then multiplied in a laboratory.

This is an incremental step forward on our long pathway toward our ultimate goal ofpreventing and reversing Type I, said Dr. Michael Haller, professor and chief of pediatricendocrinology at the UF College of Medicine.

People with Type I diabetes likely have an imbalance in two types of T-cells: regulatoryand effecter, Haller said. If a person doesnt have enough regulatory T-cells or the regulatorycells arent doing their job, then it allows the effecter cells to take over. The regulatory cellsthen attack the effecter cells.

If we can shift the balance by giving more regulatory T-cells that are either morefunctional or more potent, then we might be able to reverse the primary cause of autoimmunediseases, Haller said.

The next step will be to conduct clinical trials, Haller said. The clinical trials will involvegrowing the cells from stored cord blood, then injecting the cells back into patients. Funding isthe biggest thing keeping the research team from conducting the trials. The clinical trials willcost $1 million to $1.5 million, Haller said.

The regulatory cells are not insulin-producing cells, Haller said. They will not replacedamaged pancreas cells. The goal is to fix the immune problem. The expansion of T-cells, Haller said, could also be used to help a number of other autoimmune diseases.

Cell therapy is a living drug, and it is very different from a pill a person might take, saidTodd Brusko, associate professor of pathology at the UF College of Medicine. It is somethingyour body has developed over time as a way to control immune responses.

I think whats really unique about our approach, Brusko said, is that we areharnessing the bodys own systems to control immune responses, and using those to interferewith this disease process.

Patients with Type I diabetes have some kind of underlying autoimmune disease, Bruskosaid. Even if they received a new pancreas, the body would recognize it as foreign, and thebody would attack it. This was the goal of the research, he said, to fix the underlying issue.

Diabetes is a devastating disease for families, Brusko said. Its a family disease becauseit impacts every aspect of a persons life. They have to worry about how high or low their bloodsugar will be when they go to sleep at night.

If you can imagine a very young child being woken up in the middle of the night to havetheir blood sugar checked, that can be incredibly stressful for a family, Brusko said. This issomething that is 24/7.

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UF Health diabetes researchers multiply T-cells - News Chief