Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Dear Mr or Mrs. Science Genius,

My name is Hareshan Suntharalingam and I will be going to Grade 10 this September. I live in Markham, Ontario, Canada and I attend Markham District High School. Annually I participate in the York Regional Science Fair. In fact, last year I did a project on how the caffeine extract from coffee can have therapeutic effects on Parkinsons disease in the long term and I won a bronze medal. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to conduct any experiments to prove my theory so it was a research project.
However this year, I would like to be more prepared and get a chance to actually support my idea with evidence. This year, I am planning on doing my science fair project on Diabetes type 1. I did a lot of background research on the symptoms, causes, treatment options, statistics, and etc. I realized that currently there is no cure for diabetes type 1 and I learned that the immune system attacks the beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. I am planning on creating a vaccination that will prevent children from developing type 1 diabetes. Another idea that I thought of was to design a surgical procedure where they would essentially do a pancreas implantation but the pancreas would function electronically and release a certain quantity of insulin dependant upon the time (more insulin during a meal) which is similar to a pace maker in a sense.
Can you help me gather the essential resources and help me develop and expand this idea into a reality which will impress the judges at the science fair. Do you know if this idea has been done before because as long as I know I could not find it online. Thank you for taking time off your busy schedule for addressing my sci-request.
Sincerely
Hareshan

Hi Hareshan,

I certainly claim no genius status, but have some knowledge of human physiology and biomedical research. Type 1 diabetes (T1D) afflicts millions of people worldwide and its elimination would be a great blessing. Researchers have been attacking this disease for many decades but I have never heard of anyone developing a 'vaccine' to prevent destruction of the pancreatic beta cells. What would you vaccinate people with? According to my understanding of one theory of T1D, certain T cells of the immune system recognize some proteins of the beta cells as foreign or abnormal and consequently destroy the cells the same way they destroy cells infected with virus or bacteria.

Are you planning to administer a vaccine to every child? I doubt if that would ever happen. The best strategy would be to identify those people whose beta cells are being attacked before they develop T1D but I don't know how you would do that. Some claim that there are tests for early detection (http://www.diabetesforecast.org/2015/se ... betes.html) but I don't know how reliable they are. Stopping the T cells from killing beta cells would prevent T1D, but inactivating a specific type of T cell in the body would be very difficult, and also expensive. Blocking specific T cells can be done fairly easily in the lab using cultured cells, but the results have to be repeated first with animal experiments before they can be tested on humans.

This is probably a good place to ask you what kind of resources you have for doing advanced experiments such as would be required for this kind of a study. Do you have access to a university biomedical research lab where you can do cell culture, immunoblotting, ELISAs and fluorescence microscopy? Working with human cells requires biosafety level 2 containment which few high school facilities have and working with mice requires approval by a university animal use and care committee.

As for your other idea--the implantation of an electronic 'pancreas'--this has already been done (http://www.medtronicdiabetes.com/produc ... sulin-pump). There is a type of insulin pump that continuously monitors blood glucose levels and adjusts the output of insulin in order to keep the level in the normal range. I do not know how well it works, but technology can always be improved by someone with a better idea.

There is one other promising treatment for T1D that I have heard of--implantation of islet cells. This has been done already for some T1D patients using pancreatic cells from human donors, but the recipient must then take immunosuppressive drugs to keep their immune system from rejecting the foreign tissue. The drugs affect the immune response nonspecifically and can make the patient susceptible to infections and cancer--pretty serious side effects. There is, however, a new technique where the implants are grown inside microcapsules and implanted under the skin (http://theconversation.com/pig-implants ... etes-19178). The encapsulation prevents the immune system from 'seeing' the cells so the person does not need to take immunosuppressive drugs. Also, the cells can be taken from a pig rather than a human and function just as well. I think it might also be possible to remove some pancreatic cells from the patient, stimulate them to grow into islet cells, encapsulate them and then implant them. These cells should be physically protected from the attacking T cells so will function normally for as long as they last.

Think about what exactly you want to do and let us know what kind of lab you have access to for experimental work. Post again and we will be better able to steer you into a good lab science project that you will be able to complete.

Good luck!

Sybee

Hello scientist Sybee,

Once again thank you very much for posting an immediate response to my scientific inquiry. I really appreciate it.
I had a look at some of the links you had attached in your reply and I decided to focus on another aspect of diabetes because 2 of my original proposals had already been researched and it won't seem very interesting to the judges at the science fair. I was on vacation and then I was caught up with all the school work.
I am currently on my winter break.
Followed by that I was doing some research to see whether I could do anything with regards to genetic modifications or stem cell treatment to treat diabetes but that had already been done as well.
I was doing some more research on diabetes and I came across diabetic retinopathy which is one of the chronic effects caused by diabetes due to hyperglycemia. As you may know, this condition is associated with damage to the tiny blood vessels in the retina which ultimately leads to hemorrhage (bleed), distorting vision. In its most advanced stage, new abnormal blood vessels proliferate (increase in number) on the surface of the retina, which can lead to scarring and cell loss in the retina. I was wondering whether I can develop some form of lens that can convert ultraviolet radiation to kill some of the proliferative leaking blood vessels which can be equivalent to laser eye surgery, one or the current methods of treating this disease.
Is there any research that has been done on this?
If not, can you help me with my research for this science fair project?
Once again, I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks for being my mentor and guiding me through this project

Regards,
Hareshan