Organs, Heal Thyselves!

Lab Notes: Research from the Berkeley College of Engineering

Researchers are learning that stem cells are not the cure-all we're hoping them to be, but depend on their surrounding environment. Simply adding a new supply of stem cells to a damaged muscle, for instance, won't work because the foreign environment will interfere with the cells' behavior. Thus we will have to do comparative analysis of our biochemistry at maturity, and as we get older to see what kind of changes happen, and then be able to reverse them. I would think the same would be true for what they are trying to do to cure type 2 diabetes. The problem is not just that the islet cells have worn out, but that there is something wrong in the body that caused them to have to continually hyper-produce insulin and wear themselves out. While injecting islet cells into the pancreas of someone with type 1 diabetes will probably cure them, doing this to someone with type 2 will provide a temporary cure at best. Even with this "setback" we are seeing some amazing results with stem cell therapy.

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