Many Diabetes Patients are required to take insulin injection daily. To avoid this painful step, researchers are exploring alternate ways. One such promising alternate way is, transplanting pancreatic islet cells into the diabetes patients. These cells could act as a bioartificial pancreas, monitoring blood glucose levels and secreting insulin when needed.
Credit: Virginia Spanoudaki
Just transplanting the Pancreatic islet cells is not enough, we need to make sure that the implanted cells receive enough oxygen to produce insulin and to remain viable.
MIT engineers have now devised a way using a specialized type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to measure oxygen levels of these cells over long periods of time in living animals. These Measurements could help scientists develop better designs for a bioartificial pancreas.
News Source: MIT news
