Transplants

Xenotransplants may soon be a reality. A $2.5 million “pig palace”, housing and breeding facility in Australia to be completed in April.

In a finding that could significantly influence the way type 1 diabetes is treated, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have developed a technique for transplanting insulin-producing pancreatic cells that causes only a minimal immune response in recipients.

Pig organs: Ready for humans at last? IN THE not too distant future, a person in need of a heart transplant could be offered a pig’s organ. That’s the hope of a group that met in China last week to agree global guidelines for the first clinical trials of “xenotransplants”.

Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have shown that insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells can form after birth or after injury from progenitor cells within the pancreas that were not beta cells, a finding that contradicts a widely-cited earlier study that had concluded this is not possible.

A team of Singapore researchers has made a breakthrough in developing an unlimited number of pure insulin-producing cells from mouse embryonic stem cells that are highly effective in treating diabetes.

Twice as many older Americans are hospitalized with heart failure than 25 years ago, reflecting an aging population and success in keeping people alive after heart attacks and disease damage the organ, researchers said.

More than one dozen cases of liver failure and death were reported in patients taking GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Avandia (rosiglitazone), advocacy group Public Citizen said on Thursday in a petition calling for a ban of the drug.

Scientists have succeeded in transforming pancreatic cells from adult mice into insulin-producing beta cells, a feat they call an “extreme makeover.” Researchers say feat could lead to treatment for diabetes

Explains why transplanted insulin cells die.

Allogeneic islet cell transplantation outcome is improved with smaller transplant size and with addition of etanercept and exenatide to the post-transplant immunosuppression regimen.