Subdermal implant could boost islet cell therapy for diabetics
While islet cell transplants allow some diabetics to forgo daily insulin injections, those people have to take immunosuppressive drugs in order to keep the cells from being rejected. A new implant, however, could administer the drugs for them – and with fewer side effects.In Type 1 diabetes, the islet cells produced by the pancreas are destroyed by an autoimmune reaction. They therefore aren't available to travel via the bloodstream to the liver, where they would have produced blood-sugar-regulating insulin.As a result,…