Curing or maintaining Diabetes by bacteria

No more shots? [Link]

The researchers created a strain of nonpathogenic E. coli bacteria that produce a protein called GLP-1. In healthy people, this protein triggers cells in the pancreas to make insulin. Last year, March and his collaborators showed that engineered bacterial cells secreting the protein could trigger human intestinal cells in a dish to produce insulin in response to glucose. (It's not yet clear why the protein has this effect.)

In the new research, researchers fed the bacteria to diabetic mice. "After 80 days, the mice [went] from being diabetic to having normal glucose blood levels," says March. Diabetic mice that were not fed the engineered bacteria still had high blood sugar levels. "The promise, in short, is that a diabetic could eat yogurt or drink a smoothie as glucose-responsive insulin therapy rather than relying on insulin injections," says Kristala Jones Prather, a biochemical engineer at MIT, who was not involved in the research.