Insulin Producing Cells

Researchers from the Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium have presented a research at the 54^th annual European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology meeting in Spain that states their success in creating a new technique to produce cells with insulin-secretion capabilities. Scientists say these cells can be transplanted in patients with Type 1 diabetes whose bodies cannot produce insulin.

These researchers have previously shown that human pancreatic duct-derived cells (HDDCs) are an attractive source of cells i.e. they are progenitor cells. Scientists for this study therefore reprogrammed HDDCs to behave like beta cells and secrete insulin within the pancreas. Moreover they used messenger RNA or mRNA that controls which genes are turned on or off in the gene. mRNA before binding to the cellular DNA transformed into a protein to initiate changes in cellular functions.

Type 1 diabetes is an unavoidable condition in which beta cells in the pancreas known to produce insulin are mistakenly destroyed by the immune system. The condition can occur at any age and can lead to death if not treated.