XENOGRAFTING OF PORCINE ISLET/SERTOLI CELL COMPOSITES

1997年，与糖尿病相关的疾病使美国经济损失了980亿美元。胰岛移植作为一种治疗方式将改善成千上万人的生活质量。移植方法从实验到临床的进展面临两个主要障碍：人类供体胰腺的关键储存和移植排斥反应。Sertoli细胞研究所开发了一种新的细胞治疗方法来保护异种胰岛慢性免疫抑制。该方法使用支持细胞创建局部免疫特权部位，保护胰岛免受排斥。拟议的研究计划扩展其初步的有希望的结果，将冷冻保存的猪胰岛与大鼠支持细胞一起移植。因此，使用猪支持细胞和冷冻保存的猪胰岛的复合物的可行性现在将在患有化学诱导的糖尿病和1型糖尿病的大鼠中进行测试。此外，无论是体液还是细胞介导的。这些数据将有助于我们商业产品的开发，我们的方法在高等动物中的应用，并最终用于人类糖尿病患者的异种移植。拟议的商业应用：我们的产品正在由Sertoli Cell Research Institute开发的潜在商业应用包括用于治疗1型糖尿病患者的药物产品，也可能用于治疗2型糖尿病患者。

In 1997 diabetes-related illnesses cost the U.S. economy $98 billion. Islet transplantation as a therapeutic modality would improve quality of life of thousands. Advancement of transplant approaches from the experimental to clinical arena faces two major obstacles: the critical storage of human donor pancreases and graft rejection. Sertoli Cell Research Institute has developed a novel cellular therapeutic approach to protect xenogeneic islets chronic immunosuppression. The method uses Sertoli cells to create a local immunologically privileged site that protects islets against rejection. The proposed studies plan to expand on their preliminary promising results with the grafting of cryopreserved porcine islets along with rat Sertoli cells. Thus the feasibility of using composites of porcine Sertoli cells and cryopreserved porcine islets will now be tested in rats with chemical- induced diabetes and in those with type 1 diabetes. In addition, whether humoral or cell-mediated. These data will contributed to the development of our commercial product, to application of our approach in higher animals, and eventually to the xenografting of human diabetics. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: Potential commercial applications of our product being developed by Sertoli Cell Research Institute include pharmaceutical products for the treatment of patients with type 1 diabetes, and possibly, also type 2 diabetes.