Transplanting Beta Cells on Disc Possible New DiabetesTreatment

Doctors from Hackensack University Medical Center will be the first to try a procedure on humans with diabetes in hopes of finding a cure.…

The hospital will be the first to try a procedure on humans with diabetes that is currently being tested on monkeys in Florida — a collaborative effort with Dr. Camillo Ricordi, a pioneer in the field and the scientific director and chief academy officer of the University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute.

“Dr. Ricordi wants to find a cure for diabetes, and he doesn’t care how many people are involved in the process or share in the credit,” said Dr. Michael Shapiro, Hackensack’s chief of organ transplantation and leader of the diabetes partnership. “This collaboration will do great things for diabetes research.”

Typical treatment for diabetic patients includes insulin pumps, injections and oral medications. Transplanting islets from deceased donors is sometimes effective, but it frequently triggers other complications because the islets need to be implanted in the liver. The number of organ donors also falls way short of the number of diabetics who would benefit from a transplant.

In this latest study with monkeys, Ricordi loads islets on a disc and then implants them in the abdomen, rather than in the liver.

“The challenge is we’re dealing with an autoimmune disease so we have to replace or get cells to regenerate that were destroyed,” Ricordi told dozens of HUMC executives, physicians and health care workers this week. “And the key is to do this without a lifelong regimen of autoimmune rejection drugs.”

Based on the success with the primates, Shapiro is hoping to have four patients undergo the procedure in early 2012, though recruitment hasn’t begun. The ideal patients will be those who aren’t responding to other treatments.

His creation, the Ricordi Chamber, is so well-known in the field that it was mentioned in a recent episode of the medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy.” Critical for a transplant, it is able to efficiently separate islets from the pancreas.

But successfully transplanting the islets will only be part one of the cure. Researchers need to figure out how to create islets in the lab so there will be enough to treat all diabetic patients who need them. Another research team is working on that endeavor in the Miami institute.

“I’m absolutely sure we’ll find a cure,” said Robert Garrett, president and chief executive of HUMC.

HUMC Press Release