NEW PHASE OF INGAP RESEARCH TO BEGIN

by Etta J. Vinik, MA, Associate
Director of Education 
 
INGAP made headline news two years ago as a possible cure for diabetes. INGAP is the gene discovered by the research team at the Strelitz Diabetes Institutes, Eastern Virginia Medical School under the director of Aaron I. Vinik, MD, PhD, Director of Research. Although INGAP sounds like a new brand of jeans, its name (Islet Neogenesis Associated Protein) actually implies regeneration and growth of islet cells stimulated by a protein. Contrary to the current view that pancreas and islet transplantation will eventually succeed as the cure for diabetes, it is Dr. Vinik's belief that the cure for diabetes lies in finding a way to provide patients with the ability to generate new insulin-secreting cells from their own pancreatic cells.

How does the discovery of this gene fit in with the cure for diabetes? Having researched diabetes using Ilotropin, a crude protein extract, our scientists surmised that if they were able to create islet cell growth and development with a protein, there would be a gene linked to this process. Using a new technique, they were able to search for genes that might be uniquely related to the development of islet cells. Their search is now history! They successfully identified the gene now known as "INGAP" and showed that they were able cure diabetes in some animals by inducing immature cells in the destroyed pancreas of diabetic animals to make insulin.

What has happened to the research on INGAP since it received so much publicity two years ago?

Strelitz Diabetes Institutes' scientists in Norfolk have been working with their collaborators at McGill University in Montreal, Canada under the leadership of Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg. This collaboration began nearly thirteen years ago at the University of Michigan where Drs. Vinik and Rosenberg first discovered the chemical substance Ilotropin (mentioned above) that stimulates immature pancreatic cells to grow into adult insulin-producing cells capable of curing diabetes. In this hamster model, injections of Ilotropin were shown to actually cure hamsters with laboratory-induced diabetes. But Ilotropin is a crude mixture, and it can't be given to humans. Dr. Vinik said, "We are sure that INGAP is the gene related to Ilotropin; in fact, it is the major protein in Ilotropin, and we hope that it will soon be used in human testing."

Drs. Vinik and Rosenberg presented their latest INGAP findings at the Cosmopolitan International Conference in Saskatoon, Canada last month. They reported that in animals, INGAP stimulates new islet formation if given in appropriate doses at appropriate time intervals. They also reported that they had treated NOD mice (who have a form of diabetes, similar to type 1 diabetes in humans) with INGAP. This treatment appears to reverse diabetes. 

They reported a very exciting third finding related to the regeneration of human islet cells. Human islets used in islet transplantation have a spontaneous tendency towards cell death, leaving a slender rim of epithelial (outer layer) cells. By treating these cells with INGAP, scientists have been able to induce beta cell regeneration in tissue cells.

Dr. Vinik said, "These results are very exciting. They confirm that we are on the right track. Now our focus needs to be directed to a human model. We plan on intensifying our work to find out more about the effects of INGAP on the human pancreas. We are now hopeful that human trials are just over the horizon."