LONDON Scientists have discovered a potential new treatment for diabetes by isolating and killing defective cells which prevent the natural production of insulin.

Researchers at Massachusetts general hospital said on Monday night that they had found a way to isolate and eradicate immune system cells known as “killer” cells that are responsible for wiping out insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

The discovery of the technique opens the door to a potential therapy for patients with type 1 diabetes. It has worked on mice and tests have been carried out on the blood cells of human patients to confirm its potential. A clinical trial is under way.

The American scientists are effectively proposing a counter-attack against these cells. “Our studies in mice showed that we could selectively kill the defective autoimmune cells that were destroying insulin-producing islets,” said Denise Faustman, director of the hospital`s immunobiology laboratory and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard. “These results show that the same selective destruction can occur in human cells and connect what we saw in our animal studies with the protocol we are pursuing in our Phase I clinical trial.”

Faustman`s team found that treatment with tumour necrosis factor (TNF), an immune system regulating protein, leads to the death of wayward T-cells while leaving other parts of the immune system unharmed. In a previous study, diabetic mice given the treatment regenerated healthy islet cells and produced normal levels of insulin. Effectively, the mice were cured.—Dawn/Guardian News Service