Cell transplants combat diabetes in mice
By Nathan Seppa
By providing ailing mice with cells grown from the pancreatic tissue of genetically identical healthy animals, scientists have reversed a mouse version of diabetes, according to a new study. Their findings suggest a new route for treatment of diabetic patients.
Although tissue or organ transplants would seem to present an ideal weapon against diabetes, this approach had been disappointing. Transplants of pancreatic tissue had poor success rates in people, says study coauthor Ammon B. Peck of the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville.