Type 1 diabetes is a disorder of the body's immune system, which attacks the cells in the pancreas which produce insulin. Can stem cells provide a cure? Finding an answer to that is the goal of research which the UW School of Medicine and Public Health is participating in.
“Patients with Type 1, once those cells get destroyed, are totally dependent on injecting insulin,” says Dr. Melissa Meredith, principal investigator for the study here. “Although we've had a lot of advances in our types of insulins and pumps and types of things to treat it, it still is quite a burden on the patient.”
A UW student from Wausau, newly diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes, has already received experimental stem cells. “It's not going to be cure for the disease,” says Meredith. “Our goal would be to decrease dependence on insulin, or potentially even get patients off insulin, for at least awhile.” Other study participants, who must be between the ages of 18 and 30, are also being sought for the two year study. The experiment, sponsored by Baltimore based Osiris Therapeutics, involves just 20 medical centers nationally.
According to the National Institutes of Health, about 1.6 million of the approximately 23.6 million people in the U.S. who are diabetic have Type 1 diabetes.