Posted by Ellen on May 24, 2002 at 06:08:51:
Diabetes cure 'by 2009'
24may02
AN Australian biotechnology company today announced a breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research that could lead to a cure for diabetes by 2009.
US collaborators of the Melbourne-based ES Cell International have cured diabetic mice using pancreas cells grown from embryonic stem cells.
ES Cell International chief executive officer Robert Klupacs (Klupacs) said his company was now negotiating the intellectual property over the process.
Mr Klupacs said the breakthrough, using embryonic stem cell lines owned by ES Cell International, offered hope to the world's 300 million diabetics.
The US research builds on the so-called Edmonton Protocol, which had cured nine out of 12 test patients of diabetes by using pancreas cells taken from cadavers.
"The problem with the approach is that there's only a limited amount of cadavers that are available," Mr Klupacs told journalists at the opening of ES Cell's new Melbourne research centre.
"We needed to find a reproducible source of cells and that's why human embryo stem cell research is so important."
Mr Klupacs said the US researchers had cleared the first hurdle by working out how to grow pancreatic cells.
"They've put those cells into mice and the initial results came back that the mice don't have diabetes anymore," he said.
"(But) curing mice is not curing humans. There's a long way to go."
The next step in the research project is to increase production of the pancreatic cells and then to conduct safety trials to ensure the new treatment doesn't cause cancer.
"All being well, we could have a product on the market to treat diabetes, probably the first one being unstable diabetes (one of the three types of diabetes), by 2009," Mr Klupacs said.
"We hope to be in clinical trials in three, three-and-a-half years."
Israeli collaborators of ES Cell International have also achieved success in using embryonic stem cell research to cure mice of the degenerative neurological disorder, Parkinson's Disease.
Latest figures show one out of five Victorians aged over 25 have diabetes or pre-diabetic conditions.
AAP