The Research Ave of Islet Regeneration

Overview

For two decades, Dr. Aaron I. Vinik, Research Director of the Strelitz Diabetes Research Institute and his scientific team have endeavored to develop a cure for diabetes by finding the factor or factors that will regenerate islets from endogenous adult stem cells in one’s own body.

The concept of islet regeneration set the stage for a new biology, the potential for stimulation of stem cells resident in the adult body that could be induced to differentiate into mature functioning cells, and revolutionized the thinking of the entire international scientific community that once rejected the concept that adult stem cells exist.

The process, known as islet regeneration, was considered heretical in the 1980s. Today, through its development of this pioneering research, the Strelitz Diabetes Research Institute and made heretical science mainstream and stands at the forefront in the search for a cure that may offer people, struggling with both Type 1 and Type 2, an effective treatment for their diabetes.

In the 1990s, Eastern Virginia Medical School announced that Dr. Vinik’s team had made significant discoveries in islet regeneration. In 1992, EVMS announced that researchers had found a pancreatic cell growth factor, which they called "ilotropin." Five years later, the medical school announced that after continued intensive research, the scientific team had discovered the gene "INGAP" (Islet Neogenesis Associated Protein), which they believe is responsible for restoring the insulin-producing capacity of the pancreas.

With their discovery of the INGAP gene in 1997, scientists at the Institutes made the first inroad into this promising cure research. Proving islet regeneration feasible, they immediately set on an innovating course to further investigate how the body could heal itself by creating viable new islets to produce insulin.

In 2000 the Strelitz Diabetes Institutes partnered with the biotechnology company GMP Companies, Inc. which licensed the gene to develop INGAP research toward pharmaceutical development. Further investigations in the basic science laboratories synthesized the gene down to a simpler compound of fifteen amino acids, known as INGAP Peptide, that induces islet neogenesis.

In 2002, after successful animal studies, the Food and Drug Administration approved Phase 1/2a trials at four locations. At the time, Procter & Gamble partnered with GMP Companies in the pharmaceutical development of the INGAP Peptide. A year later, Phase 2 trials expanded to 20 locations nationwide.

In the Strelitz Diabetes Institutes’ research laboratories, the scientific team is conducting basic science research to understand the biological mechanism of islet regeneration and the important factors that will contribute to the success of this treatment for diabetes.

They speculate that human trials may reveal that INGAP Peptide therapy may not be a cure for all people with diabetes. In the Strelitz Diabetes Institutes laboratories, researchers are addressing possible contingencies that may be found in the trials through the ambitious new SPIRIT program.

The Institutes’ research team is tirelessly working toward a future with the assumption that islet regeneration in combination with appropriate immunosuppression in Type 1 diabetes and the reduction of insulin resistance in Type 2 will provide an effective treatment for certain forms of diabetes.