Transplants and Diabetes :: essays research papers

Three Toronto scientists have actual an organtransplant procedure that could, among its many reachs, reverse diabetes. The procedure was actual by Bernard Leibel, Julio Martin andWalter Zingg at the University of Toronto and theHospital for Sick Children. The story of their workbegan in 1978, when they delved into researchwhich had never before been tried. They wantedto determine if the success yard of organtransplants would increase if the recipient wasinjected with minute amounts of organ tissue prior(prenominal)to the transplant. The intention was to adapt therecipient to the transplanted tissue and therebyraise the threshold of rejection. In the case of thediabetes experiment, this meant injecting rats withpancreatic tissue before transplanting islets ofLangerhans, half-size clusters of cells scatteredthroughout the pancreas which produce insulin,glucagon, and somatostatin. In their firstexperiment, outbred Wistar rats were injectedwith change magnitude amounts of minced p ancreas fromunrelated donor rats for one year while a confinegroup was left untreated. Then both the treatedand control groups authentic injections ofapproximately 500-800 islets of Langerhans fromunrelated donors. Of the five treated animals, twobecame clinic all toldy and biochemically permanentlynormal. Six months later, Martin examined thecured rats and found intact, functioning isletssecreting all of their hormones, including insulin. no(prenominal) of the controls were cured. Encouraged bytheir first results, Leibel, Martin, and Zinggdecided to repeat the experiment with rats with oftentimes stronger immune barriers (higher levels ofrejection). Seven rats out of nine were cured. "Weset up a protocol and worked patiently with smallnumbers," says Leibel, "but the results areindisputable." In addition to reversing diabetes,there are two other benefits to the pre-treatmentprocedure, according to the scientists. The first isthat the pancreas produces all the othe r hormonesof a normal pancreas, not just insulin. The secondbenefit is that the transplant recipient doesnt haveto take immunosuppressive drugs, which are sotoxic for diabetics. At present, diabetics whoreceive a transplanted pancreas must take much(prenominal)