How Can Stem-Cell Research Benefit People with Diabetes?
I’m a type 1, diagnosed 50 years and five months ago at age 17. I want to know what progress has been made on stem-cell research with respect to diabetes. Antony W. Merz Portola Valley, California Editor’s Note: On July 31, for the first time ever, Israeli researchers turned human embryonic stem cells into a mass of islets which, in turn, produced insulin. The study was conducted by researchers at the Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology and the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel. Suheir Assady, MD, led the study. Dr. Assady has been gracious enough to respond to this question for Diabetes Health: The field of stem-cell research is young, but holds a lot of promise for providing a potentially endless source of replacement tissues for people with diabetes. Although clinical applications are still a number of years away, major breakthroughs have recently been made related to diabetes. In initial studies, mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) were
