February 14, 2013 Type 1 Diabetes Cured In Dogs With One
Treatment |Researchers at the University of Barcelona have
succeeded in completely curing type 1 diabetes in dogs with a
single session of gene therapy. This is the first time that the
disease has been cured in large animals, a fundamental step
towards applying the therapy in humans. The study, based on
introducing a "glucose sensor" into muscle, has been published
in the journal Diabetes.| Published this week in the journal
Diabetes, the principal journal for research on the disease,
after a single gene therapy session, the dogs recover their
health and no longer show symptoms of the disease. In some
cases, monitoring continued for over four years, with no
recurrence of symptoms. The gene therapy procedure used in the
experiment is minimally invasive. It consists of a single
session of various injections in the animal's rear legs using
simple needles that are commonly used in cosmetic treatments.
These injections introduce gene therapy vectors, with a