JDRF Announces IDDP Exploring Adult Stem Cells

Regular YDMV readers know I am interested by JDRF’s Industry Discovery and Development Partnership program. I am excited to see investments that are exploring for cures. I am also a big fan of the idea that those of us who care about not for profits pay attention to how the funds we give them are used.

So IDDP fans here is part of a press release about another IDDP projetc just off the news wire:

JDRF partners with Plureon to explore generating insulin-producing cells from adult stem cells

NEW YORK, February 4, 2008 – The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), the world’s largest charitable funder of type 1 diabetes research, announced today that it is partnering with Plureon Corporation, a biotechnology company based in Winston-Salem, N.C. that focuses on developing therapeutic applications of stem
cells.

Through its Industry Discovery and Development Partnership Program,
JDRF is providing $500,000 over two years of research funding aimed at
developing an insulin-producing beta cell therapy product for the treatment of
type 1 diabetes.

The project plans to use Plureon’s technology platform to isolate adult
stem cells from a type 1 diabetes patient and re-program them to generate fully
functional pancreatic beta-cells. The objective is to return the re-programmed
insulin-producing cells back into the patient in an autologous manner, i.e.,
without the need for immunosuppressive agents normally required for organ
transplantation – in this manner, the patient’s own transplanted cells will be
capable of glucose-dependent insulin secretion and the restoration of normal
blood sugar levels.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/jdrf-jpw020408.php