RCSI Bahrain researchers look to develop cure for diabetes

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Top Professors Alexandra Butler and Shahryar Khattak are collaborating on their ongoing research to explore the use of stem cells to find a feasible cure for diabetes.

Butler, Senior Research Fellow and Lead of Diabetes and Islet Cell Biology research, and Khattak, Senior Research Scientist and Lead of Stem Cell and Genome Engineering research, from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland–Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI Bahrain), are keen on addressing the prevalence of diabetes in Bahrain and the region.

Professor Stephen Atkin, Head of School of Postgraduate Studies and Research, who also oversees the RCSI Bahrain Clinical and Biomolecular Research Centre and all research initiatives, said: “The collaborative research being undertaken by Professor Alexandra Butler and Professor Shahryar Khattak in developing a cure for diabetes is a research priority at the Research Centre, where contributing to the development of a cure will be a major step in the lives of diabetic patients and advancing their quality of life.”

Patients who suffer from diabetes have low numbers of beta cells (the cells in the pancreas that make insulin, a hormone that controls the blood glucose level) and therefore these patients have high levels of glucose in the blood.

Treating these patients with insulin is essential for those with Type 1 diabetes and, together with other therapies, necessary for some patients with Type 2 diabetes; however, administration of insulin requires careful management and can have negative long-term effects on a patient’s health.

To date, transplantation of either the entire pancreas or islets isolated from a pancreas, represent the only available cure option; such transplantation procedures have had varying degrees of success and still present multiple challenges, such as a lack of available donors and the need for life-long immunosuppression to avoid the immune system attacking and destroying the transplanted beta cells.

The goal of the ongoing research led by the RCSI Bahrain research team is to find an alternative cure for diabetes that is more feasible in terms of the ease of the surgical procedure, compatibility with the patients’ health conditions, scalability to a larger number of patients and cost-effectiveness.