ENCAPSULATED ISLETS · Islets Without Immunosuppression

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TEE-MED-PR-ISL-01-M-BK T-Shirt

Piece

ENCAPSULATED ISLETS · Islets Without Immunosuppression Oversized Drop-Shoulder T-Shirt

$ 2,345.00

Description

Insulin opened the file in 1923 and a century later the attempt is to give the body back the cells that make it, encapsulated so that the immune system does not see them. Printed here is that capsule with the islets inside.

A Author

Islotes encapsulados

B Subject

Endocrinology

C Aesthetic

Diagram · Typographic

Exploration

Insulin was discovered in 1923 and since then type 1 diabetes has been treated by replacing by hand what the body used to measure on its own. The alternative would be to give back the cells that did the measuring.

Transplanting donor islets works and requires immunosuppression for life, which for a disease that already has a treatment does not pay.

The capsule is the attempt to resolve that: a membrane with pores large enough for insulin to come out and glucose to go in, and too small for a lymphocyte to pass.

The obstacle is fibrosis. The body recognises the implant as a foreign body and wraps it in scar tissue, and the cells inside suffocate from lack of oxygen before they do from rejection.

Geometries, coatings and cells derived from stem cells instead of a donor are being tried. There are patients who have been off insulin for months, and that is still not a therapy.

Details