Rats Cured of Diabetes by Precise Transplant of Pig Cells

I know what you're thinking... "great, rats can get cured by pigs, just what we need!"

It seems that scientists at the Washington University of Medicine have been able to cure rats of diabetes by transplanting embryonic pig pancreas primordia. Primordia is are not like stem cells that can become any type of tissue, but instead can only become certain types of cells or group of cells that will eventually become a particular organ or tissue. The researchers found that rats would accept these transplants without the need for immuno-suppression drugs to prevent rejection as long as the cells were less than 35 embryonic days old.

In their earlier studies, Hammerman and Rogers had shown that transplantation of pig pancreatic primordia into diabetic rats cures their diabetes permanently without the need for immune suppression. The pig primordia are transplanted into the omentum, a membrane that envelopes the intestines and other digestive organs. When the primordia mature, they replace the missing rat insulin with pig insulin, returning the rats' blood glucose to normal levels.

via: EurekAlert!The next step in this research is to test the transplant procedure with primates. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has provided funding to facilitate these tests with the hope that, if successful, pig-to-human transplants would be next.