U Finds Pig Cells Can Treat Diabetes: Duluth Group Seeks Donations to Aid Islet Transplant Research

By Jeremy Olson, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Feb. 20–Researchers at the University of Minnesota have reversed the course of diabetes in monkeys by transplanting islet cells from pigs — giving renewed hope that a better treatment, or even a cure, may soon be available.

The transplant research, published Sunday, addresses a key problem in diabetes: the lack of so-called islet cells in the pancreas that create insulin. Human islet cells work for transplants, but there are not enough to treat the millions of people with diabetes.

More research is required before pig-to-human transplants can take place, but the latest results are so encouraging that an affiliated nonprofit group is building “biosecure” farms that will raise ultra-healthy pigs for clinical trials.

Spring Point Project in Duluth, Minn., has raised $4 million of the $20 million it needs but awaited Sunday’s publication of the U research before going public with its fundraising.

“It hasn’t been easy, mainly because it wasn’t a story we could really tell, yet,” said Tom Cartier, who owns an insurance agency in Duluth. He founded Spring Point largely because his 23-year-old son is a diabetic and his father-in-law suffered complications from the disease until his death.

“We’re hoping, once people realize this is the answer we’ve been looking for, they’ll get behind this thing,” Cartier said.

University doctors performed the world’s first islet cell transplant in 1974 and have led research in this field. Some transplants have allowed diabetics to stop taking insulin injections altogether, but even human islet cell transplants remain experimental.

The problem is the number of diabetics who could benefit from a transplant outweighs the number of donated islet cells. Initially, doctors needed to gather cells from more than one pancreas to have enough for a transplant. U researchers are now succeeding with islet cells from a single human donor, but that won’t address the shortfall.

Roughly 20 million people in the U.S. have diabetes, which results when the body fails to produce enough insulin. The disease is a leading cause of death and of disabilities such as blindness and amputations.

Other alternatives to the islet-cell shortage are being studied, particularly the potential to transplant human stem cells that grow new islet cells in the pancreas. But pig islet cells might have the fastest track to human clinical trials, said Dr. Bernhard Hering, the U’s lead investigator for this research.

“This is a very critical milestone in our ability to provide tissue for transplants on an unlimited basis,” he said.

Hering’s optimism is largely due to his research on how to prevent the human immune system from rejecting transplants of animal cells. Patients already receive drugs to prevent their immune systems from rejecting human cells or organs, but the fear is that even more drugs will be needed to carry out pig-to-human transplants. Immunosuppressive drugs can have severe side effects and leave patients at great risk if they suffer infections.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center reported in 2001 that they treated a diabetic baboon by transplanting pig cells that were specially coated to fool the immune system. Hering said his research doesn’t involve any coating or genetic modifications to the pig cells, but rather involves the discovery of “critical pathways” in the body that allow the pig cells to function without triggering the immune system.

“If we want to make this available for people, it cannot come with a lot of immunosuppression,” he said. “It must be a very safe treatment. This is where all of our research has to be focused.”

Hering’s research, published in the journal Nature Medicine, was supported by private funding and later with money from the National Institutes of Health. There is no simple funding source to build farms to raise the pigs that will be used for islet cell transplants, which is why Spring Point Project was developed.

Spring Point has spent about $1 million to build a farm in South Dakota and is building another in Wisconsin. The organization also is looking at properties in Minnesota, with the hope that these and other farms will support clinical trials and eventually mass-produce pig cells for transplants.

Much of the initial funding and land came from people whose relatives or friends struggled with diabetes, Cartier said.

“There is always someone out there willing to help if they know the story,” he said.

Cartier said his son is one of the managers of his insurance business. They have a pact, he said, that the son will work hard keeping the agency successful and Cartier will work hard finding him a cure.

Jeremy Olson can be reached at jolson@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5583.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

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