Encapsulated islets for diabetes therapy: history, current progress, and critical issues requiring solution.

Insulin therapy became a reality in 1921 dramatically saving lives of people with diabetes, but not protecting them from long-term complications. Clinically successful free islet implants began in 1989 but require life long immunosuppression. Several encapsulated islet approaches have been ongoing for over 30 years without defining a clinically relevant product.

Pulsatile intravenous insulin therapy: the best practice to reverse diabetes complications?

In the basal state and after oral ingestion of carbohydrate, the normal pancreas secretes insulin into the portal vein in a pulsatile manner. The end organ of the portal vein is the liver, where approximately 80% of pancreatic insulin is extracted during first pass. In Type 1 diabetes, pancreatic insulin secretion is nearly or completely absent whilst in Type 2 diabetes the normal pattern is absent, abnormal, or blunted.

Hypothermic storage and preservation of human pancreatic acinar tissue.

Pancreatic acinar cells rapidly lose their characteristic features when cultured in vitro. No successful cryopreservation methods have been reported. To solve the problem of storing pancreatic acinar material, we found that it could be preserved at nonfreezing, cold temperatures: above the freezing point of cell culture medium (-0.