Isolation of Pancreatic Islets by FACS

全世界有超过1.5亿人患有糖尿病。使用胰岛素或旨在克服导致该疾病的代谢缺陷的药物治疗通常效果有限，因为它们不能治愈该疾病。胰腺移植已被成功应用，但胰岛部分只占整个胰腺的一小部分，可能只有1%。最近，埃德蒙顿小组成功地使用了胰岛移植。然而，目前埃德蒙顿小组已经成功地使用了胰岛移植。然而，目前的胰岛净化限制了可以处理的数量，并导致制剂在产量、活力和功能上不一致。本文提出用荧光活化细胞分选法纯化胰岛。FACS领域的新进展将使高度纯化的胰岛的产量和活性大大提高。更多的数量和更大的活性的新胰岛制剂将导致更成功和持久的胰岛移植。建议的商业应用：我们建议建立一个胰岛分类和净化系统，用于基于胰岛的研究和移植。该系统将提供更高的质量，更高的产量，并将比目前获取/分类胰岛的方法更具成本效益。胰岛生产的应用将用于糖尿病及其相关疾病。这里提出的方法是可申请专利的，对于技术许可和分配胰岛将具有重大的商业价值。

Diabetes affects more than 150 million people worldwide. Treating using insulin or drugs designed to overcome metabolic deficiencies causing the disease often have limited success since they do not cure the disease. Pancreatic transplantation have been used successfully, but the islet component of the pancreas is a small part of the total pancreas perhaps 1%. Recently, islet transplantation has been used successfully by the Edmonton group. However, current islet transplantation has been used successfully by the Edmonton group. However, current islet purification limits the numbers that can be treated and results in preparations that are inconsistent in yield, viability and functionality. It is here proposed to purify islets by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). New advances in the area of FACS will allow for greatly increased yield and activity of the highly purified islets. The greater quantity and greater activity of the new islet preparations will result in more successful and long-lasting islet transplantations. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: We propose to establish a system for sorting and purifying islets to be used in islet-based research and transplantation. This system will provide a higher quality, higher yield, and will be more cost effective than the current methods of obtaining/sorting islets. The application for islet production would be for diabetes and its related afflictions. The method proposed here is patentable and will be of substantial commercial value for licensing for the technology and distributing the islets.