I hope everyone had a good holiday and are looking forward to a good new year. I was ill with a cold and a persistent cough, along with the usual sugar complications, but am mostly better now.
I have a few more details about Tyrosine Kinase inhibition as a cure for Type I diabetes. As detailed in the Dec 18 article from Science-Business eXchange, the key action is inhibition of PDGF, or platelet-derived growth factor. It is this action alone that is involved in suppressing the process which kills (or suppresses) the insulin-producing beta cells. Inhibiting PDGF allows, so far, young cells to resume function. The current theory (see article in blogroll) is that this will probably be effectve in recently-diagnosed patients, and less so in long-term sufferers, but this is true only if the beta cells are actually dead. and, as I mentioned earlier, a paper was released about ten years ago demonstrating they were still alive, but just suppressed. I showed it to and discussed with my Dr. at the time, but no longer have the citation. If they can be revived, then this approach would work for long-term diabetics as well. Research is ongoing. A patent has been applied for by UCSF, who conducted the original study showing the effectiveness of this approach for the restoration of beta cell function, After that, a PDGF-specific inhibitor (which we already have and is already approved for human use through its inclusion in the abovementioned drugs) needs to be released. We need to let as many people as possible know about this, to pressure anyone involved to release such a drug. It is seems unlikely Big Pharma will rush to eliminate a condition which nets them billions every year, so we will have to be as vocal as possible.
There is also another promising approach yielding results which address some of the issues I mentioned earlier regarding transplantation of beta cells. Take a look at the Physorg.com article about reprogramming donor cells to evade onn’e auto-immune response. Using proteins from adenoviruses (Adenoviruses infect tissues that line the respiratory tract, eyes, intestines, and urinary tract), that evade the body’s immune responses, researchers have been able to transfer this property to transplanted mouse beta cells, allowing them to function up to three months at a time, with the anticipation that this time will be significantly extended as they narrow down the choice of which specific proteins are needed. The article inclides comments from Denise Faustman, who has been conducting her own groundbreaking research into curing diabetes for at least the last decade. You can find out more about her work at Scott Strumello’s blog (see blogroll).
