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Copying cancer’s immune-evading trick opens door to diabetes prevention | A technique used by cancer cells can shield insulin-producing cells from immune system attack
Borrowing a cancer cell’s disguise, scientists shielded insulin-producing cells from attack by the immune system, a breakthrough that could pave the way for targeted type 1 diabetes treatments without whole-body immunosuppression.
Now, a group of researchers from the Mayo Clinic has applied that knowledge, and the sneaky immune-system-avoiding trick used by cancer, to develop a treatment for type 1 diabetes. “Our findings show that it’s possible to engineer beta cells that do not prompt an immune response,” said Virginia Shapiro, PhD, an immunology researcher and the study’s corresponding author. The researchers used non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice, a well-established model for human T1D, and genetically modified them to express ST8Sia6 specifically in pancreatic beta cells.
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