Highlights
- An Australian-Iraqi doctor from Melbourne is part of a team that has made a breakthrough in diabetes treatment.
- The discovery is based on stem cells that can be 'reprogrammed' to produce insulin in the pancreas.
- Dr Ghaith Al-Hasani says he hopes the research will lead to a new treatment method for diabetes within a few years.
Diabetes has been called the "21st Century epidemic" and the biggest challenge facing Australia's health system, affecting 1.8 million Australians with 280 new cases being reported every day.
SBS Arabic24 met with Australian-Iraqi doctor Ghaith Al-Hasani, known in the medical community as Dr Keith, to talk about two discoveries he has made in the course of research aimed at alleviating the symptoms experienced by people with diabetes through a sustainable cure.
"In the case of type 1 diabetes, the immune system kills all insulin-producing cells, and without these cells, blood sugar accumulates, leading to cardiovascular and kidney diseases," he said.
Other complications stemming from diabetes include neuropathy in limbs leading to amputation and loss of sight leading to permanent blindness.
In Australia, more than 276,000 people are hospitalised each year for foot ulcers associated with diabetes, many of which end up with amputation of a limb or part of a limb.
Dr Al-Hasani's discovery is based on “reprogramming” stem cells in the pancreas to begin producing insulin to replace cells destroyed by the progression of the auto-immune disease.
The Monash University research, authored by Dr Al-Hasani and Dr Ishant Khurana, was recently published in the Nature journal .
“We discovered that a drug used to treat cancer in the United States can revive these cells in the human body after they are in hibernation in the postpartum period,” Dr Al-Hasani said.
Hopefully, in a few years, we'll get a final treatment by making the pancreas produce insulin normally.
Diabetes, which has been described as the “silent killer”, currently affects 500 million people worldwide.
data indicates that more than 180,000 Australians developed diabetes last year alone.
Not only does a person have the disease, statistics show that one member of each family often provides care for someone with diabetes, which means that about 2.4 million Australians live daily in one form or another with the disease, which is estimated to cost Australia about $14.6 billion annually.
Insulin injections and blood sugar monitoring may no longer be needed. Source: Pixabay
Dr Al-Hasani's discovery “puts us on track” to an insulin-free future but there are many years of has laboratory trials and other procedures ahead before the treatment would become accessible to patients.
“We cannot predict a specific date, but this (discovery) will accelerate our goal of achieving sustainable treatment,” Dr Al-Hasani said.
This pioneering discovery of Al-Hassani, who holds a Doctorate in Medical Research, opens a window of hope for those with diabetes.
In 2009, Dr Al-Hasani received a grant from the French government to conduct research at the University of Nice on diabetes.
"During this period, these stem cells were discovered and (also) how they could be reprogrammed to perform the function of other cells in the body," he said.
After returning to Australia, Dr Al-Hasani continued his research through the Baker International Diabetes Institute and Monash University, where he had received his doctorate.
His research has been conducted over the past 14 years and the secret of this perseverance, he says, is “patience without which it is impossible for the researcher to continue his work.”
He cautioned that 99 per cent of medical trials are doomed to failure.
However, the one per cent success rate appears to have been achieved during the past 12 months, he said.
A person feels happy to see that all his efforts will lead to a result that benefits all humanity.
The two achievements Dr Al-Hasani has achieved so far have been the detection of the causes of hibernation affecting stem cells, and the discovery of a partial compound that awakens cells from deep "slumber".
“We found stem cells in the pancreas of a person who died from type 1 diabetes and treated them in the laboratory with cancer medication and just two days later the cells ‘woke up’ and could produce insulin,” he said.
This experiment, which has been confirmed to be effective in several other tests conducted by Dr Al-Hasani's team, has been an unexpected source of happiness after years of research, he says.
“(I cried) tears of joy,” says Dr Al-Hasani.
His discovery, which revolutionises the world of medicine, will change the lives of millions around the world.
"For diabetics, I say: ‘keep hope because we will soon get a cure for diabetes’,” he said.
