Harvard makes diabetes breakthrough

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

The breakthrough occurs 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 published their work recently 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 toward understanding and treating diabetes, a condition in which the pancreas's beta cells are insufficient or dead. Diabetes affects 347 million people worldwide, and the high blood sugar levels it causes can damage patients' hearts, eyes, kidneys, nervous systems 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 Melton's work.

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

Susan Solomon, chief executive of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, said the discovery is so significant that it could shift the direction of diabetes research.

It's a new game, she 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 Center for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla, Calif. 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 percent of patients with type 2 can't make enough of the hormone, even with drug treatment, and must take daily injections to replace it, Melton said.

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Harvard makes diabetes breakthrough