A new invention seeks to improve cell therapy for diabetes and other diseases by circumventing the body?s own defenses ? particularly when those defenses attack the helpful tissue.
Students at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute developed an experimental stent to house donated insulin-producing cells and prevent the host?s body from destroying them.
Doctors previously used alginate capsules ? composed of seaweed products ? to protect donor cells from the host?s immune system, but they could not get enough blood to be effective.
The device consists of an outer structural stent, which expands a feeder artery into the liver and an inner stent wrapped in a nylon mesh, according to a release from Johns Hopkins. The inner stent allows blood nutrients to reach the encapsulated cells, and passes glucose and insulin, while the mesh keeps the donor cells in place.
“I think it?s a brilliant idea,” said Dr. Jeff Bulte, an oncologist and director of the cellular imaging section in the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering. “If they?re not siblings, donor cell transplants in the case of diabetes are something we?re working on. Typically they?ll be rejected unless the immune system is completely suppressed.”
Immune suppression is not perfect, he said, and the treatments can be toxic.
The insulin-producing cells, he said, regulate themselves.
This treatment could eliminate the need for insulin monitoring and injections for the 20.8 million people ? 7 percent of the U.S. population ? estimated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to have diabetes.
