LUMC participates in pioneering type 1 diabetes research
Diabetes
The promising early results of an international study have shown that insulin-producing cells grown from stem cells can cure the disease. The new Cure One LUMC research centre aims to accelerate this breakthrough.
The researchers used pluripotent stem cells – cells that can develop into any kind of cell – to grow insulin-producing cells in the lab. In a clinical study, patients with a complicated form of type 1 diabetes were given an infusion of the lab-grown cells. A year later, most participants no longer had diabetes. More research is needed, the researchers stress, but the early results are promising. They published their results in The New England Journal of Medicine.
In an LUMC news report (in Dutch), Eelco de Koning, a professor and endocrinologist at the LUMC, said, ‘Stem cells potentially offer a new and inexhaustible source of insulin-producing cells. The next challenge is to enable transplantation without the need for lifelong immunosuppressive drugs.’
Chronic disease with a big impact
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Around 100,000 people in the Netherlands have this form of diabetes. Patients have to check their blood sugar levels multiple times a day and take insulin, but they are at higher risk of conditions such as cardiovascular disease and kidney disease.
Transplantation
An existing but limited treatment option is islet transplantation. In this procedure, pancreatic islets, which contain insulin-producing cells, are extracted from donor organs and transplanted into the patient. These can produce insulin and, in some cases, lead to remission. But a shortage of donor organs and the need for intensive immunosuppressive therapy mean this method is only available to a small group of patients. The new treatment approach could overcome these limitations.
New centre to accelerate development
To accelerate the development of this and other innovative treatments, the LUMC has opened a new research centre with the Netherlands Diabetes Research Foundation (DON): Cure One. Leading researchers and doctors are joining forces here to cure type 1 diabetes. ‘The LUMC has been a pioneer in regenerative medicine and diabetes research for years’, said De Koning, who will lead Cure One. ‘This centre brings together all our knowledge, technology and research under one roof.’
DON, which has been supporting type 1 diabetes research since 2006, will fund the centre in the coming years. ‘We have invested millions in promising research over the years. Now it’s time to bring everything together in one place’, said Peter Frans Pauwels, chair of DON.