Breakthroughs In Diabetes Research example essay topic

I believe that one of the most non-cured diseases in America today is diabetes. Diabetes is a problem with the body's fuel system. It is caused by lack of insulin, a hormone made in the pancreas (an organ that secretes enzymes needed for digestion) that is essential for getting energy from food. There are two types of diabetes. In Type 1 diabetes, which usually starts in children, the body stops making insulin completely.

In Type 2 diabetes, also called adult-onset diabetes, the body still makes some insulin, but cannot use it properly. Today in America, there have been many attempts to cure diabetes, but none of the research has been proven to actually cure diabetes. There has been extensive research in the cure for Type 1 diabetes, many researchers have come close and many have failed. In the article "Edmonton Protocol", issued in the New Yorker, the life of Dana Shields is introduced to the reader. Dana Shields was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of fourteen. Throughout her life, she went through many obstacles.

Her blood glucose often rose out of control and she was treated numerous of times for dehydration. After giving birth to her first child at the age of twenty-seven, she developed retina damage and had to undergo a series of laser treatments to prevent blindness. Dana's diabetes continued to worsen. The nerves controlling the stomach and intestine malfunctioned and she could not digest any ordinary meal. After the birth of her second child, her kidney function deteriorated. Dana had to undergo a kidney transplant, which made her healthier, but she had to take immunosuppressive medications to prevent infection of her new organ.

Dana knew there would be complications in the future and there was little she could do about it. Dana Shields, just like any other person diagnosed with diabetes, has heard of "breakthroughs" in diabetes research, but nothing has seemed to happen. The article in the New Yorker, informed its readers of the many attempts to curing diabetes. Many researchers and scientists have come close to discovering the cure for diabetes. Many scientists tested their discoveries on animals that had the disease. The animals were inevitably cured.

But, when tested on humans the cure failed. It has been a long process with many researchers, scientists and campaigns to reach a significant cure for the disease of diabetes. Two Canadians, Frederick Banting and Charles Best are credited for identifying insulin. They knew that the pancreas played a role in regulating blood sugar but did not know how.

Insulin is a protein that was made in the islet cells of the pancreas and had a crucial connection to the disease of diabetes. In Type 1 diabetes, the patients' islet cells are damaged without repair and could not produce insulin. Banting and Best concluded that insulin injections were the best way to control the ups and downs in glucose levels. Research has showed that regular insulin injections do prevent Type 1 patients from suffering unbearable side effects. Some scientists concluded that Type 1 diabetes could be remedied only by the restoration of the islet cells. Paul Lacey, a researcher at Washington University, cured diabetic rats by transplanting the islet cells from a healthy rat.

Ray Rajotte, a bioengineer at the University of Alberta, set up a program in Edmonton to develop Lacey's work with humans. "We thought the cure had arrived" (Rajotte). Over the next twenty years, researchers made more than four hundred attempts to apply the procedure to humans. The transplanted islet cells survived in only a couple of cases, but in most the islet cells stopped producing insulin after a few days. No one was sure what accounted for the difference between people and rats. Many researchers argued that it was unethical to continue to subject diabetes to a possibly harmful procedure.

The National Institute of Health devoted less than three per cent of its diabetes budget to research on islet-cell transplantation. In 1990, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation began a fund-raising campaign called "The Only Remedy Is a Cure". Its board gave millions of dollars to basic-science research. But by 1995, no significant clinical progress had been made.

Members of the foundation, mainly parents of children with Type 1 diabetes were frustrated and bitter. One of the most outspoken was Emily Spitzer. Her seven year daughter, who has had diabetes since infancy, said to her, "Mommy, you spend all this time at the foundation, and nothing has changed for me". Emily Spitzer talked to many people. One of the people she talked to was Dr. Gordon Weir, a researcher at the Joslin Diabetes Center, in Boston. "Islet transplantation", Weirs told Spitzer, "may be the most emotionally charged area in diabetes research because its availability would provide the equivalent of a cure...

". The foundation decided to focus on islet transplantation. After talking to many researchers and scientist, Emily and the board found out that there was a breakthrough occurring in Canada, at the University of Alberta. Rajotte's research team was on the verge of shutting down when the university decided to turn to Dr. James Shapiro, a transplant surgeon in Edmonton, to revitalize the program. Spurred by the challenge of finding a cure for diabetes, Shapiro accepted the offer. Shapiro and Jonathan Lakey, another young scientist in Edmonton, went to trying to discover the right way to the procedure of islet transplantation.

The procedure involved removing the patient's pancreas, obtaining a large number of islets from it in the laboratory, and then infusing the cells back into the patient. Lakey took charge of the effort to obtain large numbers of healthy islets to transplant. Lakey believed that the transplants were failing because the patients had not received a sufficient number of high-quality islet cells. Lacey developed a mixture of enzymes which broke down the tissue of the pancreas, freeing the embedded islets without injuring them. Before Shapiro and Lakey could proceed, members of the hospital's ethics committee had to approve the project.

With much awareness, Shapiro argued his case in front of the committee and the committee permitted the trial to proceed. On March 11, 1999, Bryon Best was the first person to receive an islet transplant that employed the drugs and the techniques devised by Lakey and Shapiro, which is now called the Edmonton protocol. Within a week of his second transplant, Best required no further insulin shots and was able to maintain a steady glucose count. Many scientists, researchers, and patients were existed about this new monumental discovery. "The Edmonton Protocol received widespread media attention when researchers reported that they had developed a new method for transplanting islets that was successful in seven patients with Type 1 diabetes" In 2001, Dana Shields enrolled in an experimental trial at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Center at Harvard, which used the Edmonton protocol.

In Edmonton, Shapiro and Lakey had carried out more than two dozen transplants, with success for all but four patients, who had to begin insulin injections two years later. In May 2002, Dana had the islet-cell transplants. Four weeks later, Dana had not needed a single insulin injection since the completion of the transplant. Patients with incurable diseases must be thankful for scientific breakthroughs.

The Edmonton Protocol has been a successful breakthrough for the cure of diabetes. Credit must be given to the scientist and researchers that make it their job to try and cure a deadly disease. Just because a cure can not be found does not mean that people should give up hope. Many scientists are making it better to live with a disease. The Edmonton Protocol is just one of them.