When I was diagnosed in the mid-1970’s, JDRF (then JDF) promised my mother that a cure was five years away. Fast forward to 2007 and JDRF has pissed away a billion dollars and is still no closer to a cure.
I had given up hope for a cure—like many of you other Old Schoolers had.
But suddenly, a cure seems close.
Living Cell Technologies (LCT) has cured a woman of longstanding Type 1 without the use of immunosuppressants. They took neonatal pig islet cells and coated them in a seaweed gel to protect them from patients’ immune systems. Although LCT is an Australian company, the clinical trials are being conducted in Russia because Australia (and the United States) has currently banned xenotransplantation.
This research is verrry preliminary. But I am really hopeful about this.
LCT’s stock price went up 61% on the clinical trials news and last month the company received millions of dollars from a US investment group. Interestingly, LCT and its research get little media coverage in the US. LCT is presenting at a conference in New York on November 5 so we might get more information about the trials then.
According to company chief Dr Paul Tan, the most optimistic estimates were that the procedure may be made widely available in Russia by 2009.
And for what it’s worth, LCT has received no funding from JDRF to date.
Fingers crossed!