الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Diabetes mellitus is a syndrome of chronic hyperglycaemia due to relative / absolute insulin deficiency, resistance, or both resulting in a variety of severe complications and an overall shortened life expectancy. There is a compelling need to develop novel therapies for diabetes mellitus. Successes in the transplantation of pancreas and islets of Langerhans are seen as a major breakthrough. However, there is huge disparity between potential recipients and the availability of donor tissue. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) induced to form pancreatic β-cells could provide a replenishable supply of tissue. In order to become a realistic clinical issue transplantation of insulin-producing cells derived from stem cells, it needs to overcome multiple experimental obstacles. The first one is to develop a protocol that may allow obtaining a pure population of functional insulin-secreting cells as close as possible to the pancreatic β-cell. The second problem should concern to the transplantation itself, considering issues related to immune rejection, tumour formation, site for implant, implant survival, and biosafety mechanisms. |