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I'm a patient of Doctor Goland.
I've had type 1 diabetes for almost 40 years.
>> Thanks for considering, doing this. >> Yeah.
>> So, as we discussed... we're going to do a tiny
little skin biopsy and this is the. And doctor Goline
asked, me to participate in this research project to look into the benefits of
doing stem cell research in the context, of helping people with diabetes.
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When people on the street talk about stem cell research, or they read about it in
the New York Times, I think they usually
think of this futuristic aspect of it, that
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be able to replace those cells which are lost
there in a disease, and, and fix ourselves this way.
To, to regenerate ourselves in this way, but I think
another very important application will be to use those cells.
>> To try to figure out why we get sick, and to
discover drugs which will stop us from getting sick in the first place.
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>> Hello. >> Hi.
>> Hi.
How are you? >> Good.
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I have lived 40 years with this disease, and I'm a pretty healthy man.
So, again I, well, lucky.
But it would be great if I could wake up tomorrow,
and someone could do something to me, I wouldn't have diabetes,
But it'd be incredible if the millions of people with diabetes,
and the incredible impact on the country in terms of costs,
personal impact could be affected.
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These embryonic stem cells are remarkable cells because they have the ability to
both self-renew indefinitely in a culture, that is, over a period of weeks.
We could go from a single cell on a dish to an entire room full of cells, and those
cells would all have the ability to give rise to
any one of the different cell types in our body.
>> Be they a nerve cell, a liver cell, a pancreatic cell, a muscle cell.
And so these cells are very powerful for scientists and will allow them, I think,
to investigate basic developmental processes in our
bodies as well as try to study disease.
>> You will feel a pressure sensation but it shouldn't hurt.
Okay.
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The skin biopsy is a very simple office procedure that
is done with a small tool it's called a punch biopsy.
And it takes a 3 millimeter biopsy of the skin.
It's either done on the upper arm or the upper let.
And the cells are grown in culture, and the DNA is extracted and used.
>> In this procedure called somatic cell nuclear transfer.
>> Somatic
cell nuclear transfer is the process of removing the genetic
material from an oocyte, which is an unfertilized egg or a very
early embryo, and replacing it with the genes from an adult cell.
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>> First, you take the unfertilized egg. That egg is surrounded by a little shell.
That shell is called the zona pellucida.
And then a smaller glass pipette, is used to drill through that shell.
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And then to reach in to the egg and remove the chromosomes.
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Then after those chromosomes are introduced, the cell is allowed to
>> divide into an embryo.
And then from that you can derive embryonic stem cells lines.
>> So the, the reason for doing somatic cell nuclear
transplantation, is that by removing the chromosome from the egg.
And replacing them with these adult chromosomes
you can make an embryonic stem cell
line which has all of the genes of that adult cell If we could take
a stem cell and give it the nuclear material.
The DNA of a patient who has diabetes, and let that stem cell develop into
a insulin producing cell, we could study the development of that cell.
We could study the processes, that lead to the malfunction.
And of that cell, we could understand how the beta cell works at
such a fundamental level that we would actually be able to intervene using other
kinds of approaches.
So the primary promise of stem-cells, with regard to diabetes, or any of these
other diseases, such as Parkinson's Disease or
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Alzheimer's Such as these.
Is that we can create the cell type of interest that has the genetic mark on it
so to speak of an individual who has the disease and watch that cell develop.
And see what the steps, in development that have gone awry in that individual.
This will be an extraordinary.
>> provide extraordinary insight that just simply is not available to
us, even by studying patients who we know have the disease.
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>> I think stem-cell research is a real revolution in medicine.
Rob DeSalle, Ph.D.Curator
David Randle, Ph.D.Senior Manager of Professional Development
