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The Crucial Year for Islet Sheet is 2012
January 17th, 2012
A year ago I posted an article to this blog titled “The Crucial Year for Islet Sheet is 2011.” I was off by a year, as it turned out; last year was a transition year. The crucial year begins today. As I wrote last year, “The definitive experimental model is large animals (pig, dog, monkey) made diabetic with total removal of the pancreas.” Finally we have embarked on those experiments.
Planning this study and getting approvals proved very complicated. Three research laboratories are collaborating: Islet Sheet Medical makes Islet Sheets, under Rick Storrs’ direction. A team at UC Irvine (led by Jonathan Lakey) makes the islets that are encapsulated in the Islet Sheets and performs scientific studies to measure the sheets’ performance. Professor Richard Bergman’s physiology laboratory, led by Marilyn Ader, performs animal surgeries and measures the metabolism of the animals before pancreatectomy, while they are diabetic, and after Islet Sheet implantation.
As we were about to start experiments at USC, Professor Bergman decided to move his lab from there to Cedars-Sinai. The move took most of July and August 2011. Concurrently Bergman founded the Cedars-Sinai Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute, with Marilyn Ader (Principal Investigator on the Islet Sheet Project) as Associate Director. So our study would now take place under the new institute’s aegis. Meanwhile, canine experimental laboratories had to built out and truckloads of equipment and reagents and samples moved from East to West Los Angeles. The laboratory had to be brought on line and everything validated.
After detailed review, the Islet Sheet experimental protocol at Cedars-Sinai was approved October 27. And as I write this, the first animal surgery is hours away. All has come together.
An Inclusive Vision for the Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute
At a meeting Friday January 13 with the board of directors of Hanuman Medical Foundation, Prof. Bergman discussed his vision for the Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute. He believes that the specialized institute is the future of productive medical research. There are already institutes with a diabetes focus (Joslin at Harvard is the oldest), but he believes that a serious effort to understand and treat diabetes must include studying obesity because it is closely linked to type 2 diabetes. Further, he is choosing to greatly increase his research on autoimmune diabetes, which pleases me, as a type 1 diabetic myself.
In fact, our Islet Sheet Project is the first to get started in the new institute, signaling clearly a commitment to help people with type 1. Prof. Bergman reports that Cedars-Sinai is providing truly impressive support for his efforts. All in all, as frustrating as the delays have been, the results are clearly worth it. The Islet Sheet Project is part of the vision of the new Cedars-Sinai Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute.
Countdown to Day Zero
In an upcoming post I will summarize the approved Islet Sheet experimental protocol, which runs to 30 pages. Day Zero of the study will be when a recipient animal is made totally diabetic with total removal of the pancreas, a tricky surgery. (Today’s surgery is a practice pancreatectomy followed by islet isolation. The islets will be used for practice Islet Sheet fabrication and further experiments.) When is Day Zero? New people in new laboratories are doing, for some of them, new things. Practice is needed. We hope Day Zero will be in February, and we’ll keep you updated here.
To all who hope that the Islet Sheet will improve diabetes therapy: Hanuman Medical Foundation has worked hard and succeeded is securing funding for the first six animals to be treated under this protocol. If it works, the foundation believes it will be able to get more funding. But large animal experiments are expensive, and right now—when the results are still unclear—a donation would make a big difference. If you can give now, when we need funding most, please do. You will always know you made it possible!
