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Langerhans islet transplants: researchers at Perugia University close to a definitive treatment for diabetes

Insulin-dependence for patients of type 1 diabetes, whose onset is in the early years of life, is about to become a distant memory. The announcement was made during a press conference organised by the interuniversity organ transplant consortium which has seen the participation of transplant pioneers such as Raffaello Cortesini, the consortium's founder, Carlo Umberto Casciani, commissioner of the Lazio regional transplant agency, and Pasquale Berloco, director of the consortium, which brings together 20 Italian and foreign universities. The results of the sensational study were presented by Professor Riccardo Calafiore, an endocrinologist and head of Perugia University's laboratory for the study and transplantation of pancreatic islets. Calafiore said: "Today, Langerhans islet transplants have become extremely sophisticated. In our laboratory, after a series of pre-clinical studies conducted on diabetic animal models, we are now able to produce microcapsules which, by encapsulating each islet, protect the transplant from risk of rejection. This procedure definitely improves glycaemic control and, for a short time, we managed to suspend insulin treatment and did not administer immunosuppressive drugs". The next step envisages the possibility of inducing a 'tolerogenic state' that interrupts the continuous autoimmune destruction of Beta cells (which produce insulin) by using Sertoli cells – support cells situated along the sperm tubules of the testicles – that are appropriately encapsulated and transplanted. Studies carried out on rats so far have had surprising results: 80% of the rodents were cured of diabetes. Now the focus is on humans.