Transplants

Donor islet transplantation has long offered an intriguing possibility for people with severe type 1 diabetes: restore the body’s ability to make insulin instead of only replacing insulin from the outside. However, there has always been a major tradeoff. Patients need powerful immunosuppressive drugs to keep transplanted cells alive, and …

For more than a century, insulin has been the foundation of type 1 diabetes care. However, even the best insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitors, and automated insulin delivery systems still cannot fully replace the body’s lost beta cells. That is why interest in stem cell islet transplant diabetes research continues …

The management of diabetes during organ transplantation has become a growing clinical challenge. As transplant programs expand and survival rates improve, more patients are living with complex metabolic complications before and after surgery. One of the most important concerns is post-transplant hyperglycemia, which can affect patient outcomes at nearly every …

Could study of FOXO transcription factors one day lead to new therapies?

The Diabetes Research Institute (DRI), a Center of Excellence at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, announced today that the first patient in its clinical trial has been free from insulin injections in record time following the implantation of islet cells within a biological scaffold. The patient, Wendy …

This week we have the second part of our two-art interview with Dr. Janice Smiell, CMO at Alliqua BioMedical, Inc. Dr. Smiell, and we delve a little deeper into the specifics of this new technology to heal chronic wounds using placental biomaterials. Steve Freed: With all the testing that is …

David Levy, MD, FRCP Renal replacement therapy The decision to start dialysis is often difficult. The clinical decision is based on many factors, including the presence of uremic symptoms and weight loss, and biochemical measurements including serum creatinine (e.g. serum creatinine 700–800 μmol/L(small mu), eGFR < 12–14 mL/min, falling albumin, hyperkalemia). …

Human embryonic stem cell therapy was recently shown to reverse type 1 diabetes in mice, and now new mouse studies suggest a role for stem cells in the treatment of type 2 diabetes… Obese, diabetic mice treated with a combination of transplanted stem cell-derived pancreatic progenitor cells and insulin-sensitizing drugs …

David Levy, MD, FRCP Introduction Insulin treatment in type 1 diabetes is substitution/replacement hormone treatment, but replacement is much more variable and difficult to achieve than in other hormone deficiencies (e.g. thyroid, adrenal, gonadal hormones) because of the minute-by-minute variation in insulin secretion by the intact pancreas, which cannot yet be …

Success in finding new stem cells that can produce insulin… Type 1 diabetes is caused by autoimmune disease that leads to the destruction of insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas. The destruction of beta cells in the pancreas can be treated by transplant of pancreatic beta cells or cadaveric …