As a type 1 I'm obviously interested in such development. But if they do it only "for people unable to safely control type 1 diabetes" there must be a serious downside.<p>Ah, they only say this in the image caption but you have to take the immunosuppressives forever to keep the injected cells. Some of my own cells are still alive so I could just start taking these drugs to protect them from my immune system. I don't think I want to though.
Very interesting and promising.<p>A related approach is to implant the islets in a "pocket" under the skin, which supposedly is easier to monitor and requires less immuno-suppressing drugs [1,2].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v33/n5/full/nbt.3216.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v33/n5/full/nbt.3216.html</a> "mirrored" here <a href="http://www.cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/Papers/islets_nbt.3216.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/Papers/islets_nbt.3216.pdf</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/110/47/19054.full.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.pnas.org/content/110/47/19054.full.pdf</a>
I imagine this approach is less effective than another recent approach where they put "insulin-making islet cells onto a layer of fat in the recipient’s abdomen", right? (<a href="http://www.endocrineweb.com/news/diabetes/17843-no-more-insulin-shots-thanks-new-type-islet-cell-transplant" rel="nofollow">http://www.endocrineweb.com/news/diabetes/17843-no-more-insu...</a>)
Will this be able to be used in combination with the growth of Beta cells? (<a href="http://hsci.harvard.edu/diabetes-0" rel="nofollow">http://hsci.harvard.edu/diabetes-0</a>)