Using a $2.5 million, three-year grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), Emory transplant researchers plan to develop pig islets as an alternative to human islets for transplant into patients with Type 1 diabetes. If their research is successful, clinical trials of the porcine islet transplants into humans could begin within the next three years. Christian P. Larsen, MD, DPhil, director of the Emory Transplant Center, is principal investigator of the grant.
Individuals with Type 1 diabetes, which usually develops early in life, are unable to produce their own insulin because their pancreatic islets do not function. In 2000, researchers in Edmonton, Alberta, first reported that islet transplantation can produce a high rate of insulin independence with excellent metabolic control. This was followed over the next several years by a series of clinical trials focused on improving the islet transplant procedure. Emory was the first, and is still the only, center in Georgia thus far to transplant human islets. Emory physician/researchers have performed 16 islet transplants into nine patients since 2003.
Despite some success in helping patients forgo or cut down on insulin injections, the islet transplant procedure still faces significant challenges. Transplant recipients must take toxic immunosuppressant drugs to improve long-term survival of the islets. Emory scientists, based on research begun at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and continued in human clinical trials, are leaders in a national effort to develop less toxic drugs for islet and solid organ transplants.
At the same time, researchers have realized the vast gap between the number of human islets available from current sources and the millions with Type 1 diabetes who could potentially benefit from safe and effective islet replacement therapy. Xenotransplants, which are transplants between two different species of animals, have been consi
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Contact: Holly Korschun
hkorsch@emory.edu
404-727-3990
Emory University
26-Feb-2007