Fish to cure diabetes

1997/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza

A type of tropical freshwater fish may be a future donor for diabetics. Canadian scientists want to genetically manipulate the tilapia fish and then transplant the cells into the pancrease of the sick.

For years scientists are looking for ways to cure diabetes. The main challenge has been to transplant the island of Langerhans, a diabetic, which so far forced patients to ingest immunosuppressive drugs during transplants, but which can cause other diseases.

To solve the problem, scientists have thought about becoming donors. The best donor, in theory, is pork, but for a single transplant many pigs are needed. For the healing of 10,000 diabetics one million pigs are needed annually, which must be cared for for long periods of time in special situations. All this greatly raises costs.

Canadian scientists test tilapia with fish. This fish has two pancreas and in one of them cells can be made. However, they have found the drawback that fish and human insulin contain 17 different amino acids (pork has only one different than man). To fix this, scientists have introduced human insulin into fish eggs.