QBRI makes key discovery in treatment of diabetes

Scientists at Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI), in collaboration with researchers at Imperial College London, have discovered a new way to instruct isolated stem cells in a laboratory setting to secrete insulin when it is needed to maintain the correct sugar level in the body’s circulation.The discovery is being described as a potentially significant breakthrough in the treatment of diabetes. QBRI Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Centre  scientific director Dr Nagy Habib is the lead investigator of the team of scientists at QBRI and Imperial College London that made the discovery. The findings have just been published in Molecular Therapy-Nucleic Acids, the official journal of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy.“Diabetes is a world-wide health problem, and it is especially prevalent in Qatar,” QBRI executive director and a co-author of the study Dr Abdelali Haoudi said adding: “People with diabetes face serious medical complications, including heart disease and kidney failure. This discovery has the potential to reduce this burden by harnessing the body’s own stem cells to secrete insulin as needed to maintain proper blood sugar levels in the body. This research represents the first promising steps toward a new treatment, but it will need to go through the clinical validation before it is declared as a viable therapy.”“In a healthy person, insulin is produced by the pancreas in a constant proportion to remove excess glucose or sugar, from the blood,” Dr Haoudi explained. He said when a person consumes more sugar-rich food, the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas (called beta cells) secrete more insulin.“When a person eats less sugar, the beta cells produce less insulin. The stem cells engineered by the QBRI team behave in the same way, secreting more or less insulin, depending on glucose levels in the blood,” he added.The studies have been supported by QBRI, a member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. QBRI was established in 2012 to tackle diseases of major worldwide importance (and particularly prevalent in Qatar and the Middle East) such as diabetes and certain forms of cancer. QBRI has a specific focus on developing translational biomedical research and biotechnology. To fulfil its mission, QBRI has set up eight cutting-edge research centres: Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Research Centre, Genomic Medicine and Systems Biology Research Centre, Gene-based Therapy Research Centre, Biomedical Engineering Research Centre, Diabetes Research Centre, Cancer Research Centre, Genetic Diseases Research Centre, and the Qatar Biobank.