University of Pennsylvania other research news

University researchers reported in Science the transplantation of insulin-producing cells into mice with induced diabetes. Previous attempts at such transplantation have failed due to immunological rejection of the grafts.

In this case, the scientists transplanted engineered muscle cells that express FasL, along with grafts of pancreatic islet cells that secrete insulin. The co-transplant survived in diabetic mice, whereas islet cells transplanted alone are killed by the recipients’ immune systems. In about 25 percent of the mice, blood glucose stabilized at normal levels 10 days after receiving the co-transplants. A dose-response in survival time of the islets cells was evident with increasing amounts of the muscle cells. ...