Before this decade is over, doctors may be able to cure type 1 diabetes by encouraging the body to regenerate its own insulin-producing cells. The possibility of a cure, announced during National Diabetes Awareness Month, is based on study results recently published in the November 14 issue of Science magazine.

The announcement was made by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Iacocca Foundation, a leading nonprofit group dedicated to diabetes research, and an ardent supporter of the study.

"What we have been able to do changes the long-standing belief that adult islet tissue regeneration would not be robust or have a long-lasting impact on blood sugar control," says Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, principal investigator of the study. "We have successfully demonstrated that we can re-grow cells inside the body in a naturally occurring model."

Type 1 diabetes is a disease in which the body's immune system attacks its insulin-producing cells. These cells are necessary for converting the body's blood sugar, or glucose, to energy. With time, the accumulation of glucose in the blood can lead to heart disease, kidney failure, blindness and loss of limbs.

In addition to the almost two million Americans with type 1 diabetes, approximately 30,000 individuals - mostly children - are diagnosed with the disease each year. The annual cost associated with the disease exceeds $20.4 billion in the U.S. alone, according to the American Diabetes Association.

For cell regeneration to occur, the faulty immune cells that attack the body must first be destroyed. In a previous study, Dr. Faustman demonstrated the effectiveness of using a naturally occurring protein (TNH-alpha antagonists) to kill the immune cells in type 1 diabetic mice. She and her team then injected healthy donor spleen cells to train new immune cells not to attack the insulin-producing islets. Researchers expecting to transplant donor islet cells discovered that healthy islets spontaneously reappeared, suggesting that tissue regeneration was taking place. The new study published in Science confirmed the re-growth process.

"Dr. Faustman's research has significant implications not only to the future of diabetes treatment, but also to other autoimmune diseases," says Kathryn Iacocca Hentz, president of the Iacocca Foundation. "It may someday be possible to apply her technique in reversing rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and lupus."

Dr. Faustman is director of the immunobiology laboratory at MGH, a teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School. MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the U.S., with an annual research budget of more than $350 million. In 1994, MGH formed an affiliation with Brigham and Women's Hospital to form Partners HealthCare system, an integrated health care delivery system.

DuPont Co. plans to build its third major research and development outside the U.S. in Shanghai, China, to support the company's growth in Asia.

The $15 million facility will open in 2005 and employ up to 200 scientists, according to a press release Tuesday.

The cost will come out of the technology company's $1.2 billion research and development budget with contributions from other business lines, a spokesman said.

DuPont currently has 75 research facilities and 35 outside the US. Other major facilities outside the U.S. are in Switzerland and Japan

(Article information from Reuters)

Scientists dampened hopes of finding large amounts of water on the dark side of the Moon on Wednesday with new evidence showing that if any deposits existed, they are in short supply.

Data from the Clementine and Lunar Prospector space missions in the 1990s had suggested there could be significant supplies of water, vital to support life and human colonies on the Moon, stashed in the craters near the poles.

But after conducting a radar survey of craters constantly in shadow at the lunar poles, Bruce Campbell of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC and his colleagues said they did not uncover any evidence of thick ice deposits.

"Any lunar ice present within the regions visible to the Arecibo radar must therefore be in the form of distributed grain or thin layers," Campbell said in a report in the science journal Nature.

The wavelengths from the radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico that can penetrate deep into the craters did not produce strong echoes which would have indicated large chunks of ice.

Weaker echoes suggest any water that is there would probably be embedded in rock.

If there is water, it would probably have been deposited when comets, which are comprised largely of ice, collided with the moon over billions of years.

Scientists believe most of the water would have evaporated into space but some may have collected in the shadowed craters at the lunar poles.

The presence of water on the Moon is also important because it could also be used for rocket fuel and to establish a refueling station on the Moon for solar exploration trips.

Campbell and his team believe their findings suggest either fewer comets collided with the moon than with other planets or that there was a rapid loss of ice on the lunar surface

Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim, the formerly conjoined Egyptian twin boys, have completed the initial recovery phase following their historic separation surgery at Children's Medical Center Dallas.

The boys were transferred on Thursday to Medical City Dallas, where the next steps of their journey will involve craniofacial reconstruction and ongoing rehabilitation.

The boys have been fitted for protective headgear to provide protection and to help Ahmed and Mohamed strengthen the muscles requiring them to lift their heads, said Dale Swift, M.D., one of the neurosurgeons who helped perform the 34-hour separation surgery.

The boys parents, Ibrahim Mohamed Ibrahim and Sabah Abou Al Wafa, expressed gratitude to the neurosurgeons, physicians and all others involved in the care of their sons. Ibrahim said he can't wait to take his sons home to Egypt.

A month ago, the boys underwent 34 hours of separation surgery -- for which doctors had prepared for a year. In the operation, a team of five neurosurgeons separated brain material they shared as well as the shared circulatory systems that feed blood to their brains.

The boys can now sit upright as they blow kisses, bang on tambourines and give high-fives to doctors and nurses. They have stayed in separate rooms but come together for play time.

The boys avoided for the most part post-operative complications such as infection, blood clots, or brain swelling -- all of which could have proven fatal.
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The cost of the medical procedure was expected to cost about $2 million and be paid for by charity, with many in the medical team donating their services for free.