Engineers grow pancreatic organoids that mimic the real thing

https://news.mit.edu/2021/pancreatic-organoids-cancer-0913

by geox • 5 years ago

204 21 5 years ago

news.mit.edu

Finally, my garloid can have a friend

gumby• 5 years ago

While the pancreas is of particular interest to me, its presence in the title is the worst sort of clickbait: it buried the lede.

The real invention is a batch-reproducible gel in which all sorts of tissue can be grown. That’s really exciting!

boas2• 5 years ago

We've tried the organoid approach, but ultimately, you need an animal model to properly model blood flow, immune response, etc. So we developed a pig model of pancreatic cancer: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

My lab uses an engineering approach to develop new minimally invasive cancer therapies, and some of the new therapies are already being translated into early phase human trials: http://www.edboas.com/lab/

We're hiring biomedical engineers, so please contact me if you're interested.

nextaccountic• 5 years ago

You mean you purposefully grew tumors on pigs?

lsiebert• 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure you are well compensated and all that (though probably not as well as your bosses), but also just personally, thank you to you and everyone in your lab.

Cancer killed my grandfather, my best friend, my aunt, and so many other people I know, and what you are working on isn't just making money, it's saving lives.

8eye• 5 years ago

that sounds incredibly interesting actually, great work

sschendel• 5 years ago

Are there any plans to study and treat neuroendocrine tumors?

agumonkey• 5 years ago

hello,

first thanks for your work, since you're in advanced medical territories, what other labs / people / work do you follow with interest ?

jcims• 5 years ago

I wonder if this will have application for diabetics.

guywhocodes• 5 years ago

I know someone that has been effectively cured from type 1 diabetes from islet-cell transplantation into the liver by injection into arteries in the liver.

This seems to be one step closer to being able to that without the problem of harvesting those islet cells from living human pancreases.

However, the main problem remains, if you are not already on immune-suppression you will have another autoimmune-reaction to your insulin producing cells. I don't know the status of highly specific immune-suppression like that but I know as a type 1 diabetic that I rather keep my diabetes if required to have a functioning immune-system.

Benjamin_Dobell3• 5 years ago

I found this study where gene therapy was used to alter alpha cells to behave more like beta cells quite interesting:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5757249/

I don't know if much has happened with the research since, but the theory was since only beta cells are targeted by the autoimmune response, perhaps these "pseudo Beta cells" might be left to produce insulin without being attacked. Does mean you're potentially left with inhibited glucagon production though. Perhaps gene therapy altered alpha cells could be implanted rather than altering the ones you have.

mleonhard3• 5 years ago

highly specific immune-suppression

It is being developed and has cured type 1 diabetes in two clinical trials:

1. "Metabolic and immune effects of immunotherapy with proinsulin peptide in human new-onset type 1 diabetes" https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aaf7779

2. "Safety and feasibility of intradermal injection with tolerogenic dendritic cells pulsed with proinsulin peptide—for type 1 diabetes" https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(20)30104-2

A press release about the study: https://www.cityofhope.org/breakthroughs/safety-trial-for-ty...

They are currently recruiting for the next clinical trial. Perhaps you could participate?

"An Immunotherapy Vaccine (PIpepTolDC) for the Treatment of Patients With Type 1 Diabetes" https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04590872

sdze• 5 years ago

Could be maybe also of use for alcohol use disorders where the pancreatic cells are chronically damaged from the metabolites of ethanol.

Engineers grow pancreatic organoids that mimic the real thing

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