Savvy Updates, 2/17/20: Stem cells for ailing kidneys, Brain function in T1 kids

Could new Israeli technique spell the end of dialysis? by Abigail Klein Laichman for Israel21c.org, 10 February 2020.

A treatment using a patient’s own stem cells could rejuvenate ailing kidneys without dialysis, transplantation or immune rejection. That is the conclusion of a groundbreaking Israeli study recently published in Cell Reports by researchers from Sheba Medical Center and Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

“This treatment is aimed at the millions of patients who have yet to require dialysis treatment, and focuses on improving and stabilizing their renal function in order to avoid the need for dialysis,” said lead author Dr. Benjamin Dekel, chief of pediatric nephrology and the Pediatric Stem Cell Research Institute in the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba.

The newly developed technology, so far tested on mice, generated new tissue to replace damaged kidney tissue. The mice’s kidney function improved as a result. The researchers wrote that chronic kidney disease is reaching epidemic proportions in the Western world. In the United States alone, chronic kidney disease affects more than 45 million individuals. “Harvesting tissue from failing kidneys and autotransplantation of tissue progenitors could theoretically delay the need for dialysis,” they concluded.

Brain function irregular in children with Type 1 diabetes, study says was published by Erin Digitale for Stanford Medicine News Center, 9 December 2019.

Children with Type 1 diabetes show subtle but important differences in brain function compared with those who don’t have the disease, a study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine has shown.

The study, published online Dec. 9 in PLOS Medicine, is the first to evaluate what happens in the brains of children with diabetes during a cognitive task. On functional magnetic resonance imaging scans, when their brains were at work, children with diabetes displayed a set of abnormal brain-activity patterns that has been seen in many other disorders, including cognitive decline in aging, concussion, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and multiple sclerosis. The study also reported that the abnormal brain-activity patterns were more pronounced in children who had had diabetes longer.

“Our findings suggest that, in children with Type 1 diabetes, the brain isn’t being as efficient as it could,” said Lara Foland-Ross, PhD, senior research associate at the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research at Stanford. Foland-Ross shares lead authorship of the paper with Bruce Buckingham, MD, professor emeritus of pediatrics at Stanford.

“The takeaway from our study is that, despite a lot of attention from endocrinologists to this group of patients, and real improvements in clinical guidelines, children with diabetes are still at risk of having learning and behavioral issues that are likely associated with their disease,” said the study’s senior author, Allan Reiss, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford.