SPLEEN cells might be capable of regenerating insulin-producing islet cells in people with diabetes, claims Denise Faustman’s team at Massachusetts General Hospital in Charlestown.
Two years ago, the team reported curing mice with the disease by using a double-barrelled treatment to eradicate the rogue immune cells that attack and destroy the islet cells in the pancreas. First, the memory T-cells responsible for the immune attack were killed using tumour necrosis factor-alpha. Next, Faustman injected spleen cells, because they make a substance lethal to naive memory T-cells, stopping them from forming yet more islet-slaying memory cells.
Now it turns out that…
