Insulin-secreting skin implant found to reverse diabetes in mice
It did so without the need for any anti-rejection drugs.
Loukia Papadopoulos
Published: Dec 05, 2023 07:38 PM EST
In September of this year, a team of MIT engineers made headlines when they created a new implantable gadget that helped Type 1 diabetes patients maintain their blood sugar levels without requiring regular insulin injections. The innovation was praised for its usefulness and its potential to make diabetes treatment easier and more accessible.
Trials on mice prove very promising
Now, researchers at the University of Alberta and Cornell University have invented an insulin-secreting skin implant that, in tests conducted on mice, was even shown to reverse diabetes. The device was further found to forgo the need for any anti-rejection drugs.
“If we could do a transplant with less or no anti-rejection drugs, we could do it much more safely, and we could include more patients who could benefit,” said James Shapiro, the Canada Research Chair in Transplant Surgery and Regenerative Medicine and scientist at the University of Alberta.
The work is based on an invention by Minglin Ma of Cornell who conceived of a detachable polymer thread containing thousands of islet cells covered by a thin hydrogel covering that could be inserted into a patient's belly without inducing an immune reaction. Shapiro was already working on a diabetes skin implant with similar qualities and upon stumbling on Ma’s work had the idea of combining the two approaches. This proved very successful.
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more: https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/insulin-secreting-skin-implant-found-to-reverse-diabetes-in-mice
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-023-01145-8 (paywalled)