New hope against diabetes
A diabetes treatment based on one that cured mice in laboratory experiments has produced promising results in humans enrolled in an initial drug trial, killing immune system cells that attack diabetics’ pancreases and raising levels of a chemical marker that indicates that the pancreas is producing insulin, according to the trial’s lead researcher. The results are encouraging enough that Associate Professor of Medicine Denise Faustman, a physician at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), is planning the next round of testing for the drug, a decades-old tuberculosis vaccine called Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG). Faustman cautioned that there remains a long way to go before the treatment is proven helpful against human diabetes. “It’s promising, but it’s not replacing insulin yet,” said Faustman, director of MGH’s Immunobiology Laboratory. Faustman announced the results of the phase 1 human trial on Friday (June 24). The phase 1 trial is the first in a multistep process required by federal...