Bluestone's appointment is expected to strengthen and accelerate research on diabetes and other autoimmune diseases at UCSF and quicken the pace of applying promising new research findings to clinical treatments. The aim is to improve the success of transplantation and of newer, less invasive treatments for diabetes and other autoimmune diseases, allergies and asthma. We expect our diabetes program, in both basic research and patient therapies, to become a national leader. He has carried out animal studies of islet transplantation using drugs that target one or the other of the signaling mechanisms. The research indicates that a combination of drugs could allow for successful islet transplantation without shutting down the entire immune system.
Current treatment relies on daily administration of insulin to regulate the body's sugar levels.
However, insulin treatment is still inexact, and the inability to effectively control high sugar levels can lead to devastating long-term complications. A major goal in treatment of Type 1 diabetes has been to replace the insulin producing islet cells. Historically, this has been done by full-organ transplantation of a pancreas, requiring major surgery and the use of toxic drugs to prevent graft rejection. Many researchers now hope that the use of far less invasive islet cell transplantation, combined with the novel drugs to induce tolerance, will lead to long-term independence from insulin treatments for people with the disease. Copyright 1999 Regents of the University of California.